Khalid bin Salman of Saudi Arabia meets with US officials | Human Rights Issues

Saudi Crown’s brother Prince MBS is in Washington, months after ordering a US intelligence report on the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid bin Salman meets with Biden officials in the United States, a few months later smart report in the US he joined his brother, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khalid bin Salman is expected to meet with Biden adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as US State and Defense officials, White House spokesman Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

“They will discuss the long-term relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, regional security and the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia protect its territories,” Psaki told reporters, adding that Khashoggi’s assassination should come again.

Saudi Arabia’s top visit – which was not announced in advance – came as US security forces and lawmakers urged US President Joe Biden to accept MBS for helping to assassinate Khashoggi, a reporter for the Washington Post, and reconsider the US-Saudi relationship.

Khashoggi was was killed in October 2018 at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, where he went to obtain a marriage certificate.

A well-known US intelligence report released in February found that the MBS, the governor of the Gulf nation, had approved the operation that led to Khashoggi being killed by the Saudi military inside the embassy. The Saudi government denied the MBS’s involvement in the killings.

The country’s foreign ministry denied the allegations, saying the report contained “malicious, false and unethical statements about the Kingdom’s leadership” and “misinformation and ideology”.

But the findings he shook the countdown between Riyadh and Washington, and pressured United States President Joe Biden, who was elected last year on a promise to put human rights within the US foreign policy.

The US president has said he wants to “re-establish” US-Saudi relations – and is in direct contact with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, not with their son, the prince.

Khalid bin Salman was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington during the Khashoggi era.

After Khashoggi’s disappearance after visiting the Saudi ambassador to Turkey, Khalid bin Salman insisted for several days that allegations of Saudi involvement in the missing journalist were false.

The Washington Post also reports that Khalid bin Salman told Khashoggi to go to the Turkish embassy to get a marriage certificate, and told him it was best to do so.

According to an unnamed US official, the Associated Press reported that Khalid bin Salman had a brief meeting at the Pentagon with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The deputy defense minister for Saudi Arabia also spoke at length at the Pentagon with Colin Kahl, the secretary-general of defense, the official said.

Bin Salman will be in the State department on Wednesday, Ned Price said.