[ad_1]
Breaking News Emails
Receive last minute alerts and special reports. News and stories that matter, delivered the mornings of the week.
/ Update
By F. Brinley Bruton
You might be forgiven for thinking that things happened as usual Monday in the Saudi capital during King Salman's annual speech to the Shura Council of the country.
Just days after the first Saudi prosecutor recommended the death sentence to five suspects in the assassination of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, the king did not mention the storm of controversy swirling around him. from his country. The CIA believes that the king's son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing.
King Salman expressed his support for the kingdom's justice, which will investigate the Khashoggi assassination on Oct. 2 at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
"The kingdom was founded on an Islamic approach based on the establishment of justice. We are proud of the efforts of the judiciary and the prosecution service to fulfill their duty. We affirm that this country will not deviate from the application of the law of God, "he said in a speech to the unelected body that advises the absolute monarch.
After vehemently denying any official involvement in the assassination, the Saudis claimed that Khashoggi – a former insider who became a recognized critic of Prince Mohammed – had been killed by a gang of thugs.
A series of official leaks tied the prince to murder, but the young royal remained officially spared by the kingdom's investigation.
On Friday, NBC News reported that the CIA had concluded that Prince Mohammed had ordered the killing, according to one informed person of the assessment. NBC News had previously reported that the US intelligence community believed that it was unlikely that Prince Mohammed could have had any connection with Khashoggi's death.
Asked by the CIA whether the crown prince was behind the murder, President Donald Trump said Sunday: "They have not evaluated anything yet, it's too early." C & # 39; is a very premature report. "
During his speech, the king reiterated his support for his son's initiative to straighten the bar of the oil-dependent economy and reduce unemployment.
"Our country has adopted a comprehensive development plan consistent with the plans and programs of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, which is running in parallel and achieving its goals at a satisfactory pace," he said. "You are aware of the state's efforts to create more jobs and we have asked the crown prince, president of the Economic Development Council, to focus and develop human capabilities and prepare the new generation future jobs. "
After becoming an international figure in 2015 after being appointed Deputy Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed was commended for his weakening of the country's powerful conservative clerics and for increasing women's participation in the economy and to society, in particular by granting them the right to drive.
More recent efforts to silence dissent and harsh repression of princes-princes, business leaders, human rights defenders, women activists and religious reformers, however, sounded the alarm. The brief abduction of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his break with the Gulf Kingdom, Qatar, also worried the traditional allies, including the United States.
The king also defended another initiative launched by his 33-year-old son: the disastrous war in neighboring Yemen. The conflict in this desperately poor country has helped create the worst humanitarian disaster in the world and has pushed half of the population, about 14 million people, to the brink of starvation.
While the assassinations of Khashoggi have crystallized most of the growing international malaise vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, the kingdom as well as Prince Mohammed have become the pivot of the plans of the Trump administration, as to contain the ambitions Iran and present an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
In May 2017, during Trump's first visit abroad as a US leader, the president announced an immediate sale of US $ 110 billion worth of US weapons and equipment, as well as additional transactions of US $ 350 billion. dollars over the next 10 years.
While it is unclear to what extent Trump's announcement covered agreements already unveiled, the president touted these arms sales in an effort to explain the importance relationships with the kingdom.
Recently, bipartisan pressure has also been exerted on Trump to separate the United States from Saudi Arabia, particularly the Crown Prince. Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, severely condemned Sunday the Crown Prince for the alleged role of the young king in the murder of Khashoggi, calling the de facto leader of the country "unbalanced".
"It's impossible for me to believe that he does not know anything about it," Graham said at "Meet The Press". The Republican said he did not have an official briefing on the subject, but said the conclusion that the crown prince played a role in the killing of Khashoggi should be clear to anyone with knowledge of the country.
"If he wants to be the face of Saudi Arabia in the future, I think the kingdom will have difficulties on the world stage," Graham said.
On Thursday, the United States announced sanctions against 17 Saudi officials in response to the assassination.
[ad_2]Source link
