Prince Turki Al Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s previous intelligence chief and one-time ambassador to Washington.
Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg
“As an example, on energy issues, he came in with a policy to stop completely fossil fuel usage not only in the United States, but worldwide, and now he is finding himself having to rely on fossil fuels as a means of meeting the energy shortage that has come about, not only because of the Ukraine war, but also because of U.S. policy itself that shut down pipelines and stopped issuing … discovery of oil on U.S. soil,” he stated.
The White House did not instantly react to CNBC’s ask for remark.
Central to the fractious relationship in between the 2 historic allies is the claims from the U.S. intelligence neighborhood that the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, straight purchased the 2018 murder of Washington Post reporter JamalKhashoggi The Saudi federal government has actually consistently declined the allegation.
Prince Turki, who was the head of the Saudi intelligence services in between 1979 and 2001 and has actually likewise functioned as the kingdom’s ambassador to the U.S., questioned Washington’s belief that it holds the ethical high ground on human rights problems.
“So instead of shouting at each other, we should engage in trying to improve what would be on the ground for both the people of the United States and for Saudi Arabia,” he stated.
“So what I would say is, any visitor and not just the American president who has complaints about Saudi issues like human rights and so on, please get off your high horse.”
Also main to the president’s program throughout the Middle East journey is the peace procedure, and Biden on Friday guaranteed an extra $100 million to support Palestinian medical facilities in Jerusalem as he tried to renew political discussion in between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid stated Thursday that action need to be on the table if Iran continues to establish its nuclear program, prompting the U.S. to embrace a harder position versus Tehran.
Prince Turki stated that while he hoped Biden might make some headway, “the deck is stacked against him.”
“His visit to Israel I think has shown that he is not much using his history to force Israel, for example, to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions, whether 242 or 338, or subsequent resolutions that the U.S. itself has supported in the past,” he stated.
He included that Biden will have a difficult time encouraging the Saudis that he is genuine in engaging with Riyadh on problems such as peace, energy, terrorism and Iran.
“These are files that are full of baggage from the past, and trying to untangle them is going to be quite a project for the president,” he stated.
