Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) told The Atlantic that he was not bothered by the criticism levelled against him by the United States (US) following the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. MBS also said that he is willing to normalise ties with Israel if it resolves the Palestinian issue.
When asked if he had ordered the killing of Khashoggi, MBS said that it was “obvious” that he had no involvement in the murder. Saying that the accusations against him “hurt me a lot,” the Crown Prince said that the incident was the “worst thing ever to happen to me because it could have ruined all of my plans” to reform Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi, who was openly critical of the Saudi monarchy, was killed in 2018 after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancée. The Saudi government, which initially denied any role in his murder, later claimed that he was killed by a team of rogue agents from the Kingdom.
In 2021, a US intelligence report released by the Biden administration accused MBS of approving Khashoggi’s assassination. The document said that the Crown Prince had “absolute control” of the Saudi security apparatus, which made it unlikely that Saudi officials had carried out the killing without his authorisation.
Soon after, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken announced the “Khashoggi Ban,” a new directive aimed at imposing visa restriction policies on individuals engaging in “counter-dissident activities” on behalf of a foreign government. As part of this policy, the US government imposed travel restrictions on 76 Saudi officials believed to have played a role in Khashoggi’s murder.
MBS has told people close to him that the murder of Khashoggi was the "worst thing ever to happen to me."
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) March 3, 2022
He told @gcaw and me that the murder "hurt me a lot. It hurt me and it hurt Saudi Arabia, from a feelings perspective."
Read @gcaw's story here: https://t.co/BNaT6ABt0I
MBS said that the US’ decision to blame him and impose sanctions on Saudi officials was unfair, especially considering US bombings of wedding parties in Afghanistan and torture of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay have gone unpunished. “Article XI of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that any person is innocent until proven guilty,” he stressed.
Furthermore, he said he had “never read a Khashoggi article” in his life and if he were to hypothetically send a kill squad, he would choose more valuable targets. “If that’s the way we did things, Khashoggi would not even be among the top 1,000 people on the list. If you’re going to go for another operation like that, for another person, it’s got to be professional and it’s got to be one of the top 1,000,” MBS added.
However, he said that the death of Khashoggi was a “huge mistake” and he is doing the best he can to prevent such an incident from taking place again.
When asked whether the Biden administration “misunderstood” him, MBS replied: “Simply, I do not care.” He added that the Biden administration would only harm US interests by alienating the Saudi monarchy. “It’s up to him [Biden] to think about the interests of America.”
Moreover, according to the transcript of the interview released by the state-owned Saudi Press Agency, the Crown Prince was asked about whether he planned on normalising ties with Israel, especially after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan formally recognised Israel in 2020 as part of the US-sponsored Abraham Accords.
MBS said that Saudi Arabia is ready to normalise ties with Israel provided that a solution to the Palestinian conflict is achieved. “For us, we hope that the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is solved,” he said. “We don’t look at Israel as an enemy, we look to them as a potential ally, with many interests that we can pursue together,” the Crown Prince added.
While Saudi Arabia does not officially recognise Israel as a country because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been secretly engaging in diplomatic and security talks. Both countries have a lot of similar security interests, especially with regard to containing Iran’s military expansion in the region and in preventing Tehran from producing a nuclear weapon. In 2020, reports emerged that ex-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had secretly visited the Gulf country to discuss security ties with senior Saudi officials.
MBS also discussed his plans to reform Saudi Arabia both economically and culturally, his flagship Vision 2030 programme, and his efforts to combat religious extremism.
The interview published in The Atlantic can be found here.
A separate transcript of the interview published by the Saudi Press Agency can be found here.