Mnuchin meets Saudi crown prince amid growing criticism over Khashoggi killing
US finance chief and Prince Mohammed bin Salman discuss ‘the importance of the Saudi-US strategic partnership’ as Trump says he’s ‘not satisfied’ with explanation of writer’s death
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday held closed-door talks in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has faced a global backlash over journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
The official Saudi Press Agency said the two stressed “the importance of the Saudi-US strategic partnership” in a meeting on the eve of a key investment conference in Riyadh.
Mnuchin is a among a wave of Western political leaders who pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative (FII), dubbed “Davos in the desert,” amid global outrage over the journalist’s murder in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate.
Trump said Monday he was “not satisfied” with Riyadh’s explanation of how Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, died inside the Saudi consulate.
#CrownPrince meets with the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and stresses the importance of Saudi-US strategic partnership, where it holds an important role in the future in line with the Kingdom’s #Vision2030 pic.twitter.com/5LyloSOMTK
— Foreign Ministry ???????? (@KSAmofaEN) October 22, 2018
Asked if he believed the Saudis were telling the truth about the circumstances surrounding the 59-year-old’s death three weeks ago, Trump told reporters at the White House: “We will know very soon.”
“I am going to know very shortly because I have a great group of people in Turkey right now and a great group of people in Saudi Arabia,” Trump said.
“They are coming back tonight and tomorrow and I will know very soon.”
“And I am not satisfied with what I have heard.”
Mnuchin’s withdrawal from the investment conference came after top financial, trade and foreign officials from Britain, France and Germany also dropped out.
The Saudis have said they plan to move forward with the conference, scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday, despite a wave of cancellations by business titans and media giants.
According to a Saturday report in the Washington Post, Mnuchin still plans to attend a meeting of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center in Riyadh, despite the suspected involvement of Saudi government officials and security services in the slaying of Khashoggi.
Mnuchin met Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks on Iran sanctions and cooperation between the two countries to combat terrorism. In statements before the meeting, the Israeli leader praised the strength of the relationship between the two countries as the two governments work to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“The US-Israel alliance under President Trump has never been stronger,” Netanyahu said. “I appreciate that alliance and the strength of our relations in every field — in intelligence, security, cooperation in trade and economic cooperation, and of course in our common approach in preventing aggression in this region.”
Mnuchin noted that it was his third trip to Israel in the past year, before agreeing with the prime minister’s statement.
“We have no better partner than Israel in combating terrorist financing,” he said.
The treasury secretary also noted the importance of the economic relationship between the two countries and said that the US would make further investments.
“We have a very important relationship with Israel. This is really a great place for investments, particularly technology investments,” Mnuchin told reporters in Jerusalem.
“We are going to make sure we do more infrastructure investments here,” he added, without further elaboration.
Mnuchin also met with Israel’s Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and treasury officials to update the tax treaty between the two countries. The update would lower taxes for foreign investors and aims to draw more US investors to Israel, the Calcalist daily reported. The idea is to improve Israel’s tax regime to make it more competitive globally. The existing tax treaty, signed between the countries in the 1970s and entered into force in 1995, is outdated, Israeli officials have said, and needs to be updated.
The Trump administration has been steadily restoring sanctions on Iran since the president withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord in May.
Iran has been grappling with an economic crisis in recent months, with its currency plunging to historic lows and sporadic protests breaking out. The first set of sanctions, which were eased under the terms of the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, was re-imposed in August. A second, more sweeping set of sanctions is set to be re-imposed in early November.
Earlier this month, US National Security Adviser John Bolton unveiled the administration’s long-awaited counterterrorism strategy, delivering it with harsh words for Iran.
Calling Iran the “world’s central banker of international terrorism,” Bolton said the strategy will rely on traditional military action to fight terrorists, but also seek increased emphasis on non-military means to battle not only Islamic State militants but those backed by Iran and other groups, specifically naming Hezbollah and Hamas as two terror groups supported by Iran that could pose a threat to the US.
The US and six Gulf Arab states recently hit Hezbollah’s leadership with sanctions and last week designated the terrorist group as a transnational organized crime threat.
The Times of Israel Community.