U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced a visa ban Friday targeting 76 Saudi Arabian citizens over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and they have announced sanctions, but Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sanctions list.
In a statement Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the world was “horrified” by Khashoggi’s assassination and announced a visa restriction policy named after the famous Saudi journalist and dissident.
“Khashoggi’s ban allows the State Department to impose visa restrictions on individuals believed to have been directly involved in the acts of serious external dissent, including the those who harass, harass, threaten, threaten or harm journalists or others who are seen as dissenters for their work, or who go engage in such activities in relation to the families or close relatives of others, ”Blinken said in the statement.
“As a matter of safety for all within our borders, manufacturers aiming at dissent on behalf of any foreign government should not be allowed to reach America’s new soil,” Blinken said.
Biden’s actions in the first weeks of his administration appear to be aimed at fulfilling campaign promises to reaffirm Saudi ties after critics blamed his ancestor, the former Chief President Donald Trump, that he allowed the Arab enemy and a major oil producer to bypass real human rights violations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement ‘the world was horrified by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’ and imposed visa restrictions on Saudis believed to be threatening foreign dissidents [Manuel Balce Ceneta/Pool via Reuters]
Blinken said the moves reinforce global criticism of Khashoggi’s assassination and serve as a “push back against governments reaching beyond their borders to threaten and attack journalists and dissidents who are seen to exercise their fundamental freedom ”.
Biden’s chief administrative officer, speaking on condition of anonymity with Reuters news agency, said the approach aims to create a new starting point for ties with the kingdom without breaking key ties in the Middle East. . Relationships have been deeply strained for years with the war in Yemen and the killings inside the Saudi consulate of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who wrote columns for The Washington Post.
Importantly, the decisions appeared to be designed to maintain a working relationship with the crown prince, even though information from the U.S. rubbed off that he approved of the work to overthrow Khashoggi. capture or kill.
“The aim is to rebalance [in ties] – not a riot. That’s because of the important interests we share, ”said Biden’s chief executive.
The 59-year-old Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and was killed by a team of workers attached to the crown prince. They then removed his body. The remains of it have never been found.
The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on former Saudi deputy head of intelligence Ahmed al-Asiri and the Saudi Royal Guard’s rapid intervention force, known as the “Tiger Squad” or Firqat el-Nemr, the department said in a statement.
The rapid intervention force, or RIF, was pointed out in a U.S. intelligence report for its role in Khashoggi’s assassination. The force “is there to protect, respond only to The Crown Prince, and had carried out a direct investigation into earlier dissident prevention activity in the UK and abroad”, the report said.
The visa ban will be selectively enforced in family members, officials said.
“People from Saudi Arabia will be in this first installment. But then it really becomes a new global device, ”a second US official told Reuters.
Monitoring human rights
In addition, the U.S. Department of State will begin reporting in its annual report on human rights on programs with Saudi Arabia and other countries that monitor, harass or target dissidents and journalists.
Riyadh eventually admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in a false “false” expansion activity, but denied that the crown prince was involved. Five men sentenced to death for the murder have been jailed for 20 years after being pardoned by Khashoggi’s family.
Biden administration officials say the decisions on sanctions and visa bans will send a clear message about how the U.S. wants to see the future relationship between the U.S. and Saudi.
It will still allow the U.S. to maintain a working relationship with the crown prince, the country’s 35-year de facto ruler.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has already held talks with him.
Asked about any debate over the imposition of sanctions on the crown prince, the first U.S. official said that the U.S. has not generally imposed sanctions “directed at height of countries ”.
“We really are [came to] the unanimous decision that only alternative, more effective ways of dealing with these issues are ongoing, ”said the official.
Earlier this month Biden announced a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, calling for more than six years of war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia. Arabia and Iran.