Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is backing Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the kingdom’s ambassador to the U.S., rejecting calls for his expulsion over the monarchy’s murder of a dissident journalist.
“Khalid bin Salman’s role as Saudi ambassador to the United States remains unchanged and we will continue to work with him on important regional and bilateral issues,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Friday.
That note of solidarity draws another protective line around the administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, putting a brake on bipartisan outrage over the execution in Istanbul of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has concluded was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed.
[Read more: Lindsey Graham: I feel ‘played,’ ‘used’ by Saudi crown prince]
The crown prince is the oldest of six brothers from his father King Salman’s third marriage. Prince Khalid is the third son from that marriage. In addition, the crown prince has five half brother’s from his father’s first marriage and one from his father’s second.
Prince Khalid misled senators about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and punishing him was an obvious way for lawmakers to escalate the rebuke of the Saudis beyond the sanctions Pompeo already announced.
“As the Secretary has said, we will continue to work to ascertain the facts, assess all information, and hold those responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and we urge the Saudis to do the same as they continue their investigation,” the spokesperson said.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., took aim at the ambassador within a day of Prince Khalid’s return to the U.S.
“We should formally expel the Saudi ambassador to the United States given the crown prince’s direct involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And we should call on our allies to do the same,” Durbin said Thursday. “Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world reject this conduct and make sure that a price is paid, the Saudis will continue to do it.”
The Khashoggi killing has whet the appetite on Capitol Hill for anti-Saudi legislation. The Senate is poised to vote on a resolution that would direct the president to end support for a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, where rival Iran has backed an insurrection. That policy is a thorny one for lawmakers, who oppose Iran’s play for influence in the country but are angry about Saudi Arabia’s killing of civilians in the course of the fighting. The debate on that bill could provide an opportunity for votes on a number of legislative amendments, which could produce alternative ways to rebuke the oil-rich monarchy.
“It’s a work in progress right now,” Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who will chair the Foreign Relations Committee in the next Congress, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a lot of proposals kicking around right now. It’s going to be a give and take. And like everything that gets through here, if it gets through here, it’ll be a bipartisan compromise.”
Pompeo will seek to balance that frustration against the administration’s diplomatic priorities. “We will maintain the important strategic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” the State Department spokesperson said.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/state-department-rejects-calls-to-expel-saudi-ambassador-to-us-over-his-brothers-role-in-khashoggi-murder
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