Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has said, in an interview in The Atlantic published on Thursday, that he simply doesn’t care whether United States (US) President Joe Biden misunderstood things about him, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
Since Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the long-standing strategic partnership between Saudi Arabia and Washington has come under pressure over Riyadh’s human rights record, particularly regarding the Yemeni war and the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
The crown prince was asked about the damaged relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its impact on the US president’s opinion of him.
“Simply, I don’t care. It’s up to him to think about the interests of America,” he told The Atlantic.
When asked about the interests of the United States in Saudi Arabia, the crown prince said that he is not an American, so it is not his position to talk about American interests.
The Biden administration has released a US intelligence report involving the Crown Prince in Khashoggi’s assassination, which Prince Mohammed denies, and has campaigned for the release of political prisoners.
The crown prince said he felt his rights were being violated by the accusations against him in the brutal murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, who was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.
“I feel that human rights law has not been applied to me…Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
Prince Mohammed told The Atlantic that Riyadh’s goal is to maintain and strengthen its “long and historic” relationship with America.
The crown prince said that Saudi Arabia has the option of decreasing its investments in the US. “In the same way we have the possibility of boosting our interests, we have the possibility of reducing them,” he said, speaking about Saudi investments in the US, which amount to $800 billion.
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