Since entering the White House, President Biden has refused to meet, or even speak, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, seeking to punish him by ostracizing him for the gruesome killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in 2018. But that objection fell by the wayside on Friday when Mr Biden and Prince Mohammed met face-to-face during Mr Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia for a regional summit focused on oil and Iran. The two leaders briefly discussed the case, according to US and Saudi officials, but essentially agreed to disagree on Prince Mohammed’s guilt before announcing a series of initiatives aimed at emphasizing close cooperation between their countries. And with that, the last high-profile effort to hold Prince Mohammed to account for the killing ended. The conversation between the two leaders took place behind closed doors and slightly different accounts emerged. Mr. Biden told reporters that he had privately confronted Prince Mohammed about what he called an “outrageous” killing at the start of their meeting, even telling the prince that Mr. Biden held him responsible for it. “I made my point clear,” Mr. Biden said. Separately, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, described to reporters a less controversial human rights exchange in which the assassination was briefly mentioned. Calling the killing a “terrible mistake”, Mr al-Jubeir said those responsible for the crime had been punished, that the United States and Saudi Arabia had moved on and that the United States was unable to criticize, recalling that torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by US troops. Mr Khashoggi was one of Saudi Arabia’s top journalists and was for years considered a palace insider who could effectively explain the kingdom’s point of view. But after Prince Mohammed’s ascension in 2015, Mr Khashoggi criticized the prince’s lack of tolerance for dissent and, fearing arrest, fled to the United States, where he wrote columns for the Washington Post criticizing the prince’s initiatives. In October 2018, Mr Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. It never came out. Turkish officials and a United Nations investigator later described how he confronted a hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia that strangled and injected him with a tranquilizer, killing him. A coroner then dismembered his body and a body double wandered around Istanbul, wearing Mr Khashoggi’s clothes in a failed attempt to convince people he was still alive. For weeks, Saudi officials denied the kingdom was behind his crime, but the perpetrators were caught on camera and identified, some with close ties to Prince Mohammed. Saudi officials eventually acknowledged Mr Khashoggi’s assassination but insisted it had been carried out by rogue agents without such orders from Riyadh. Although Prince Mohammed said he had no premonitions of the plot, the assassination left a deep stain on his efforts to portray himself as a long-term reformer. A Saudi trial that found eight men guilty in connection with the killing failed to quell international outrage. Mr Khashoggi’s killing was the main reason Mr Biden promised during his campaign to treat the Saudis “like the pariahs they are”. At the White House, he authorized the release of a CIA assessment saying the prince had approved the operation that led to Mr Khashoggi’s death. Mr Biden also refused to speak to Prince Mohammed, saying his own counterpart was the king. Until Friday, that is, when Mr. Biden sat down with Prince Mohammed to discuss oil supplies, regional security and other issues.
