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'More effective ways': White House official on why US won't sanction Saudi crown prince in Khashoggi killing
The US last week released fresh declassified file on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, who was critical of the Saudi kingdom and the crown prince.
The Biden administration in the United States may have implicated Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but there won't be any sanctions against him. And the White House has a reason for that, as explained by press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday.
Psaki told CNN that there are more "effective ways" to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the killing as well as leave room with the Saudis on "areas of mutual agreement".
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier explained that Biden wants to "recalibrate" but not "rupture" its relations with Riyadh, a longstanding Middle East partner.
"This is not the Saudi smack-down that many expected," Varsha Koduvayur, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies think-tank in Washington, told news agency AFP.
The US on Friday released fresh declassified file on the killing of Khashoggi, who was critical of the Saudi kingdom and the crown prince, popularly know by his initials MBS, which cited intelligence reports from CIA and other agenies to say that the killing took place on the orders of the crown prince.
Khashoggi, a US resident, disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. He had gone to the consulate to get a document that he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz who was waiting outside.
Turkish officials say Khashoggi, 59, was strangled and his body was cut into pieces by a 15-man Saudi group inside the kingdom’s mission. His remains have never been found.
The conclusion in the report that the prince approved an operation to kill or capture Khashoggi was based on his decision-making role inside the kingdom, the involvement of a key adviser and members of his protective detail and his past support for violently silencing dissidents abroad.
After the report was released, Blinken announced sanctions against 76 Saudi individuals under what he called a new “Khashoggi Ban” policy.
