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LAST UPDATE | 21 Oct 2018
US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has accused Saudi Arabia of lying about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, his strongest comments to date on the affair as pressure builds on the administration to strike a tougher line.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump stepped back from his stance that Saudi Arabia’s latest explanation for the death of the journalist inside their Istanbul consulate was credible, but said he remained confident in the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Obviously there’s been deception and there’s been lies,” he said of the shifting accounts offered by Riyadh.
Saudi officials originally said Khashoggi, who entered the diplomatic mission on October 2, had left unharmed, before announcing Friday he was killed inside the building in what they described as an altercation.
“Their stories are all over the place,” Trump added.
Saudi Arabia faced a growing chorus of incredulity Sunday, with world powers demanding answers. British and French officials denounced the latest Saudi explanation as insufficient and are among the countries calling for an “urgent need for clarification”. Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said the Saudi version lacked “consistency and credibility.”
Growing pressure
Closer to home, pressure continued to grow on Trump to take a stronger stance against Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter and a key regional power.
Several senior members of Trump’s Republican Party said they believed Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, was linked to the killing, and one called for a “collective” Western response if a link is proved.
But Trump stopped far short of calling for the prince to be replaced, emphasizing as he has before how important the US-Saudi relationship is to Washington’s regional strategic goals.
He described the 33-year-old prince, widely known as MBS, as a “strong person; he has very good control.”
He’s seen as a person who can keep things under check,” added Trump. “I mean that in a positive way.
Trump added that he has yet to be shown any evidence by intelligence officials that would make him believe MBS had any direct role.
“Nobody has told me he’s responsible. Nobody has told me he’s not responsible. We haven’t reached that point. I haven’t heard either way,” the president said.
There is a possibility he found out about it afterward. It could be something in the building went badly awry. It could be that’s when he found out about it. He could have known they were bringing him back to Saudi Arabia.
Republicans hit MBS
Amid Trump’s apparent equivocations, several key Republicans demanded a tougher stance.
Speaking on ABC, Republican Congressman Peter King said: “There’s no way that one person, an overweight civilian, has to be killed. They could have brought him down with no trouble at all,” adding he believed there was “an intent to kill”.
Asked if he thought Prince Mohammed was behind the killing, a fellow Republican, Senator Bob Corker, told CNN: “Yes, I think he did it. Let’s finish this investigation.”
Corker, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, added that if the prince is implicated, “There should be a collective response.”
I think you’re going to see the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany working collectively with others if he did this to respond in an appropriate way.
Perhaps the strongest words came from Lindsay Graham, a strong Trump ally in the Senate who called for Prince Mohammed to “be removed”.
“I would like to punish those involved. It’s impossible to believe the crown prince wasn’t involved. I don’t mind military sales but I object to business with the current leadership,” he said.
This behavior is outside the norm to the point that the people involved need to be removed in my view. Saudi Arabia is a country and MBS is a person. I’m willing to separate the two.
Democrats have repeatedly lashed out at Trump’s response as weak and indecisive, and they said his latest reaction fell short as well.
Barring an unlikely “confession” from Prince Mohammed, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said, “the president is going to accept the crown prince’s denials like he’s accepted Putin’s denials and Kim Jong-Un’s denials.”
“We need to do a deep-dive probe in terms of Saudi Arabia,” he said on ABC. “We have to see if financial motives are influencing the president.”
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I’d kill for a Nobel peace prize
Ah now Sinead, you have to learn the difference between Heads of State and Heads of Government!
Ah now, Frank, you’ll have to learn that while you’re half right, so is Sinéad. There are some Heads of State (e.g. France and Lithuania) who attend these EU events instead of Heads of Government, depending on the particular country’s laws.
So they should be referred to as “heads of state or government”. The Queen of England has never been at an EU summit. Our Head of State is Michael D Higgins and he hasn’t been to one either. My point is about accuracy
I do recall her sitting next to Bertie Ahern at the knees-up following an eu summit.
While their gesture is to be commended their economic policicies in other regions and countries are killing and starving other citizens of the world hypocrisy at it.s best
Name an EU policy that actively kills non-EU citizens?
Cos that would be quite a news story!
Austerity is a killer for many now when you find out find out your own identity I will converse with you not some psyeudnym
I don’t think anybody is starving to death…
Ivory tower comments lives on
Governments spending within their means is murdering people?
Hyperbole at best… in truth just a moronic rant that belongs better on a barstool.
There not spending with in their means their spending everybody elses means to keep them in over inflated wage packets and if nobody is starving why are there soup kitchens popping up all over the place st vincent de paul.innundated with request cappuchin centre over ran with people looking hand outs and as for your hyperbole stick it where the sun dont shine as for bar room rhetoric very seldom frequent them so stick your assumption also where the sun dont shine
How touching. Meanwhile they wage war on their own citizens. Hitting the blind and handicapped through austerity in their own backyard. You would think it was their own money being put to a good use. Oh no they’re far to clever for that they’ve always someone else’s money for good causes.
The EU wage war on the blind?
Finally…. a war the French stand a chance of winning!
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