Since entering the White House, President Biden had refused to meet or even speak to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, in an effort to punish him with exile for the horrific murder of the Saudi journalist. Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in 2018.
But that objection fell away on Friday when Mr Biden and Prince Mohammed met in person during Mr Biden’s maiden trip to Saudi Arabia for a regional summit on oil and Iran.
The two leaders briefly discussed the matter, according to US and Saudi officials, but in fact agreed to disagree over Prince Mohammed’s guilt before announcing a slew of initiatives to highlight the close partnership between their countries.
And so ended the latest high-level attempt to hold Prince Mohammed responsible for the murder.
The conversation of the two leaders took place behind closed doors and slightly different stories emerged.
Mr Biden told reporters he had privately confronted Prince Mohammed at the start of their meeting with what he called an “outrageous” murder, even telling the prince that Mr Biden held him responsible for it.
President Biden’s Visit to the Middle East
The US president is on a four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia after calling the latter country a “pariah” state following the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist.
“I’ve made my opinion crystal clear,” Mr Biden said.
Separately, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, described to reporters a less contentious exchange of views on human rights that briefly mentioned the assassination.
Calling the murder “a terrible mistake,” Mr al-Jubeir said those responsible for the crime had been punished, the United States and Saudi Arabia had continued and the United States was not in a position to criticize recalling the torture of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison by US forces.
Mr Khashoggi was one of Saudi Arabia’s foremost journalists and for many years was considered a palace insider who could effectively explain the kingdom’s position.
But after Prince Mohammed came to power in 2015, Mr Khashoggi criticized the prince’s lack of tolerance for dissent and, fearing arrest, fled to the United States, where he wrote columns for The Washington Post criticizing him. on the Prince’s initiatives.
In October 2018, Mr Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée. He never came out.
Turkish officials and a United Nations investigator later told how he was confronted by an assassination squad sent out from Saudi Arabia that strangled him and injected him with a sedative, killing him. A forensic doctor then dismembered his body and a coroner roamed Istanbul dressed in Mr Khashoggi’s clothes in a failed attempt to convince the world that he was still alive.
For weeks, Saudi officials denied that the kingdom was behind his crime, but the perpetrators were caught and identified on camera, and some were closely associated with Prince Mohammed.
Saudi officials eventually acknowledged Khashoggi’s murder, but insisted it was carried out by rogue agents with no such order from Riyadh.
Though Prince Mohammed said he had no foreknowledge of the plot, the assassination left a deep stain on his efforts to brand himself a forward-looking reformer. A Saudi trial in which eight men were found guilty of the murder did little to quell international outrage.
Khashoggi’s assassination was one of the main reasons Biden vowed during his election campaign to treat the Saudis “like the pariah that they are”.
At the White House, he authorized the release of a CIA report stating that the prince had authorized the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death. Mr Biden also refused to speak to Prince Mohammed, saying his own counterpart was the king.
Until Friday, that is, when Mr. Biden sat down with Prince Mohammed to discuss oil supplies, regional security and other matters.