Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said what happened with Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi was ‘regrettable,’ during his meeting with US President Joe Biden in Jeddah on Friday.
A senior Saudi official, present in the meeting, noted that the meeting between Prince Mohammed and President Biden was scheduled for an hour and a half but lasted for three and covered a wide range of issues.
The Crown Prince said that Saudi Arabia has undertaken all legal procedures in the Khashoggi case, from investigations, to trials, to sentencing, and the implementation of the sentences. The Kingdom has also put in place procedures that prevent the occurrence of such mistakes again at any point in the future.
During the meeting, the Crown Prince noted that incidents like this could occur anywhere in the world, adding that in the same year other journalists were killed in other places. He mentioned that the US has also made mistakes, citing Abu Ghuraib in Iraq and others as examples, according to the official.
Prince Mohammed said that what is required is for countries to deal with these mistakes and implement procedures that would prevent them from taking place again.
During his meeting with Biden, Prince Mohammed also mentioned the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and asked what the US and other countries have done in that regard.
The Crown Prince said that all countries, especially the US and Saudi Arabia, have values that they share and those that they don’t, however the right values and principles always affect the peoples of other countries — especially at a time when we see an unprecedented interdependence between the peoples of the world.
According to the Crown Prince, attempting to impose these values by force is counterproductive, as demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the US has not succeeded. The senior Saudi official added that an entire family that was killed by a drone strike in Afghanistan in August 2021 is still waiting for justice.
Therefore, it is important to know that every country has different values and must be respected, Prince Mohammed said. The Crown Prince added that if we assume that the US will deal only with countries that share 100 percent of its values and principles then it will have no countries that deal with it except NATO countries.