US President Joe Biden says he raised the issue of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr Biden is in Saudi Arabia to rebuild relations, having previously promised to make the country a “pariah” on its human rights record.
He said the killing in 2018 was “important to the United States and me”. But he also said that the two countries had agreed on other issues.
Mr Biden’s visit has been criticized for validating the Saudi government following the killing of US-based Saudi dissident journalist Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018.
US intelligence agencies accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of approving the murder. The prince has always denied the allegations, and Saudi prosecutors blamed “rogue” Saudi agents.
“For the murder of Khashoggi, I raised it at the top of the meeting, making it clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now,” Mr Biden said in a press briefing after Friday’s meeting.
“I said very straightforwardly, ‘for an American president to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am. I’ll always stand up for our values.”
Mr Biden said the crown prince claimed he was “not personally responsible” for the death, the Associated Press reported. “I indicated I thought he was,” the president said he replied.
Before the meeting, Mr Biden was pictured clutching the Crown Prince in a fist, indicating a heating up of relations between the two countries.
Aside from Khashoggi’s murder, President Biden said he and his Saudi counterpart had discussed energy and expected to see Saudi Arabia, a significant oil producer, take “further steps” to stabilise the market in the coming weeks.
Defending Mr Biden’s actions, US Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman told the BBC that Saudi Arabia increasing its supply of oil to the market would save lives.
“The price of oil means people die in developing countries. It raises the price of food and fertiliser, and it means people die by the hundreds of thousands, not just from starvation but also from the disease the malnourished tend to acquire,” he said.
“So it’s very easy for Mrs Khashoggi [Hatice Cengiz] can say ‘don’t worry about those hundreds of thousands of people who will die, avenge my fiance’. You’ve got to be adults here.”
Mr Biden also announced Saudi Arabia would open its airspace to aircraft flying to and from Israel, which was previously banned.