At the meeting, Bin Salman, also known as MBS, denied responsibility for killing Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. Biden said he indicated his disagreement with MBS based on US intelligence assessments, according to the source. In response to Biden raising the issue of Khashoggi, MBS cited the sexual and physical abuse of inmates at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison by US military personnel and the May killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank as incidents that backfired of the US, the source said.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, echoed that sentiment in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer shortly after the end of the meeting in which Jubeir participated.
“We investigated, punished and ensured that this does not happen again,” Jubeir said when asked about Khashoggi’s murder. “That’s what states do. That’s what the US did when the Abu Ghraib mistake was made.”
Abu Ghraib prison was a US military detention center for captured Iraqis from the start of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 until the prison was closed in 2006. In 2004, numerous graphic images from the prison were leaked depicting torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners of American military personnel. Eleven US soldiers were convicted of crimes related to the scandal. Prominent Al Jazeera journalist Abu Akle was fatally shot during an Israeli military attack in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
Abu Akle was a household name in the Arab world after spending decades reporting on the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Footage obtained by CNN — corroborated by the testimony of eight eyewitnesses, an audio analyst and an explosives weapons expert — suggests that Abu Akle, who was wearing a helmet and a blue protective vest emblazoned with the word “Press” at the time of her killing, was shot at targeted attack by Israeli forces.
In the West Bank on Friday, Biden said the US was demanding a “full and transparent accounting” of the journalist’s murder.
Biden called Abu Akleh’s death a “tremendous loss” as he stood next to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem.
“I hope her legacy … will inspire more young people to continue her work of reporting the truth and telling stories that are too often overlooked.” The United States will continue to push for a full and transparent account of her death, and you will continue to stand up for media freedom everywhere in the world,” Biden said.
Palestinian officials and family members of Abu Akle criticized the US investigation and called on the US to do more to hold Israel accountable for the killing.
Khashoggi raised at summit of Biden-MBS meeting
In a hastily arranged speech following Biden’s bilateral talks with MBS, the president said he raised the issue of Khashoggi’s killing early in the meeting.
“Regarding the assassination of Khashoggi, I brought it up at the beginning of the meeting, making clear what I thought about him then and what I think about him now,” Biden told reporters. “I was straightforward and direct in discussing it. I made my point crystal clear.’
But the human rights discussion appears to have been dwarfed by broader conversations about energy security, regional stability, trade and investment, according to multiple officials. Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the war in Yemen are also seen as key parts of the discussions.
“Those responsible (for Khashoggi’s murder) are being investigated and are facing the law and paying the price for their crime,” Jubeir said on CNN during the discussion. “The conversation took place within the framework of the official discussion.
Senior administration officials on Saturday defended Biden’s decision to meet face-to-face with MBS despite fierce pushback and criticism, saying it would be “a retreat if the president didn’t come to the region and it would be a retreat if he didn’t want to to sit and raise human rights concerns with foreign leaders around the world.”
“It’s hard to say that values are going to be a key part of your foreign policy and human rights are very important to us as a nation and certainly as an administration, and then not go abroad and talk to (leaders) in frank, frank ways about it, it’s troubling,” said a senior administration official.
Biden came to Jeddah to seek solutions to one of his main political problems at home — skyrocketing gas prices — as diplomacy with Saudi Arabia in the Middle East was seen as one of the few avenues he could take to oust prices that are burdening millions of Americans.
But White House officials say the president will not return to Washington on Saturday with an apparent increase in oil production. Expectations are that there will be increases in the coming months – made in the context of the increased production levels in the OPEC+ cartel set out at its meeting in August.
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