/President Donald Trump is shown with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Gulf Co-operation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 14. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

Thomson Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew nothing about the murder of U.S. resident and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, widely known as MBS, on Tuesday for a visit expected to advance the sale of F-35 fighter jets and a host of business deals with the kingdom.

MBS last visited Washington just months before Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi royal family, was killed in Turkey in 2018.

Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 that year and was never seen alive again. Turkish officials, describing it as a premeditated attack, said his assailants strangled him, dismembered his body with a bone saw and then disposed of it.

U.S. intelligence concluded that MBS approved the capture or the grisly killing of Khashoggi. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

After saying it was an “honour” to call bin Salman a “friend,” Trump rebuked an ABC News journalist who asked about Khashoggi’s murder.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him,” the president said. “Things happened, but [bin Salman] knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.”

Bin Salman responded that it was “really painful” to hear about anyone “losing his life for … no real purpose.”

He insisted the kingdom investigated and will do its best to ensure “that this doesn’t happen again.”

The warm welcome the crown prince received in Washington on Tuesday is the latest sign that relations have recovered from the deep strain caused by Khashoggi’s murder.

DAWN, a Middle East and North Africa human rights and democracy organization that was started by Khashoggi, protested the crown prince’s visit outside the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. It parked an LED billboard truck bearing an image of MBS and the message: “Mr. Bone Saw is in town and wants you to forget about his crimes.”

Seven years on, MBS casts himself as a broker of peace, repairing ties with Iran, pushing for a Gaza ceasefire and welcoming Syria back into the Arab fold. Domestically, he has emerged as the most momentous and audacious leader in the kingdom’s modern history, driving an economic transformation and opening up some sectors of society.

The prince was invited by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to participate in the G7 summit, held this summer in Alberta, but did not attend.

The government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau condemned the killing in 2018 and imposed sanctions on 17 Saudis linked to the killing.

Immediately following the murder, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service travelled to Turkey, where he listened to audio recordings of Khashoggi’s killing inside the consulate.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at an ABC News reporter who asked about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s connection to the 2018 murder of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. During their meeting at the White House, Trump claimed the crown prince had no knowledge of Khashoggi’s killing, which took place inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, contradicting U.S. intelligence about bin Salman’s role in the murder.

Fighter jet sale would mark regional shift

The meeting underscores a key relationship — between the world’s biggest economy and the top oil exporter — that Trump has made a high priority in his second term as the international uproar around the killing of Khashoggi has gradually faded.

Bin Salman promised on Tuesday to increase his country’s U.S. investment to $1 trillion US from a $600 billion pledge he made when Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May. He offered no details or timetable.

Talks between the two leaders looked set to advance security ties, civil nuclear co-operation and multibillion-dollar business deals with the kingdom.

Trump told reporters that the two countries had reached a “defence agreement,” without providing details, and that Saudi Arabia would buy advanced U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets.

It would be the first U.S. sale of the fighter jets to Saudi and marks a significant policy shift. Until now, Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the F-35.

Trump said he got a “positive response” about the prospects for Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel. But the crown prince made clear that while he wanted to join the Abraham Accords, he was sticking to his condition that Israel must provide a path to Palestinian statehood, which it has refused to do.

Trump reached Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan during his first term in 2020. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan agreed to join.

But Trump has always seen Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as the lynchpin to achieving a wider Middle East peace.

The rise of MBS

Bin Salman’s rise began when his father, King Salman, ascended the throne in 2015 and gave him powerful portfolios, including defence, as the Saudis led a coalition to fight Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In 2017, he ousted his older cousin Mohammed bin Nayef as heir in a palace coup, upending a hierarchy long governed by seniority.

That same year, Riyadh-born Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri surprisingly resigned after several days in Saudi Arabia, with some Lebanon officials alleging he had effectively been kidnapped and coerced by the Saudis to quit.

At home, the 40-year-old prince has defanged the once-feared religious police, sidelined clerics and swept away decades of austere social codes. Women now drive, work and mingle freely with men — freedoms once punishable by flogging.

In a kingdom that once cloaked women in mandatory black abayas and hijabs, pop stars and fashion shows now light up Riyadh, recasting Saudi Arabia’s image from a cloistered theocracy into a nation hurtling toward modernity.

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Via https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/washington-saudi-prince-mbs-salman-trump-white-house-9.6982672