Saudi empties Makkah Shareef's Grand Mosque for 'sterilization'

Saudi Arabia on Thursday emptied the Kaaba Shareef, Islam's Sacred site, for sterilization over fears of the new coronavirus, an unprecedented move after the kingdom suspended the year-round Umrah pilgrimage.

State television relayed stunning images of an empty white-tiled area surrounding the Kaaba Shareef - inside Makkah Shareef's Grand Mosque, which is usually packed with tens of thousands of pilgrims.

The move was a “temporary preventive measure” but the upper floors of the Grand Mosque were still open for prayers, a Saudi official told AFP. He called the measure “unprecedented”.

On Wednesday, the kingdom halted the Umrah pilgrimage for its own citizens and residents.

The move came after authorities last week suspended visas for the Umrah and barred citizens from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council from entering Makkah Shareef and Madina Shareef.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday declared three new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of reported infections to five.

The decision to suspend the Umrah comes ahead of the holy fasting month of Ramazan starting in late April, which is a favored period for pilgrimage.

It is unclear how the coronavirus will affect the Haj, due to start in late July.

Some 2.5 million faithful traveled to Saudi Arabia from across the world in 2019 to perform the Haj.

Read More

How Turkey's President Pressured Saudis To Account For Khashoggi's Death

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan and his aides narrated the crisis, focusing the world's attention on what they said was a brazen, state-sponsored assassination on its soil.

Key Points:

• Respite for Tayyip Erdogan, criticised for detaining foreign nationals
• He publicly accused Saudi Arabia's leaders of obstructing the probe
• Also drew the world's attention to the brazen, state-sponsored killing

Saudi Arabia's decision to acknowledge the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi followed calls for justice from around the world. But no individual had put more pressure on the oil-rich monarchy than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

After Khashoggi disappeared at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Erdogan and his aides did more than just quietly investigate: They narrated the crisis, focusing the world's attention on what they said was a brazen, state-sponsored assassination on its soil.

Grisly details of the alleged killing were released to the Turkish and international news media. Erdogan publicly upbraided Saudi Arabia's leaders, accusing them of obstructing the probe.

Turkey's revelations may have helped push the Saudi government to reverse its repeated denials of wrongdoing and announce early Saturday that it had arrested 18 people and fired several top officials in the case. Saudi officials said Khashoggi was killed in a fight inside the consulate.

In a final act of Turkish pressure, prosecutors said Friday that they were interviewing Turks who worked at the consulate - employees who might have insight into the movements and actions of Saudi officials around the time Khashoggi disappeared.

Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, also warned that when Turkey completed its investigation, it would share the results "with the world."

For Erdogan, the benefits of turning up the heat on Saudi Arabia and its young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, were apparent, analysts said. The two countries have competed for influence in the Middle East and clashed over Turkey's support for Qatar in a feud that divided the region.

Erdogan has little personal affection for Mohammed, who referred to Turkey this year as part of a regional "triangle of evil," along with Iran and regional Islamist groups. The Khashoggi investigation, with its allegations of high-level collusion by Saudi officials, provided Turkey an opportunity to damage the crown prince's reputation, analysts said, and to drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The Turkish president has also said he regarded Khashoggi as "a friend."

Erdogan may be seeking other leverage for Turkey as well, including preventing Saudi meddling in Syria along Turkey's border, and financial aid or relief from the United States or the Saudis, analysts said.

The crisis provided a measure of respite for Turkey, at a time when Erdogan was facing criticism at home for the ailing Turkish economy and criticism abroad for detaining foreign nationals and engaging in "hostage diplomacy."

Instead, Khashoggi's case thrust Erdogan into the ironic role of defender of journalistic freedom and dealmaker between the United States and Saudi Arabia as the two longtime allies have sought to manage the blowback over what many have concluded was Riyadh's unrepentant killing of a prominent critic.

If Khashoggi's status as a veteran journalist who wrote for The Washington Post first helped elevate his case from local mystery to global crisis, Turkey's response amplified his plight.

Four days after Khashoggi's disappearance on Oct. 2, Turkish officials shared their explosive conclusions with the news media: He had been killed soon after he entered the consulate to obtain papers that proved he was divorced. His murder, the investigators added, was at the hands of a 15-man "hit team" dispatched from Riyadh to silence Khashoggi, who had written columns in The Post criticizing the crown prince.

Leaks about the case seemed to dry up about a week ago. But they started again, more lurid than before, after President Donald Trump speculated that "rogue killers" were behind Khashoggi's disappearance and as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and was photographed smiling next to the crown prince.

The leaks fueled speculation that Erdogan was raising the cost of his government's cooperation with Saudi Arabia, which badly wants to put the Khashoggi incident behind it.

U.S. officials had expected Saudi Arabia to take responsibility for Khashoggi's death but to explain it in a way that shielded the crown prince from responsibility.

The announcement early Saturday appeared to meet that criteria, though it immediately came under criticism from policymakers in Washington. Erdogan, however, can claim Riyadh dismissed two senior aides to the crown prince as a result of his pressure campaign and may be able to walk away satisfied.

"The Turks have leaked information in drips and drops, ultimately in my estimation to increase the price of settlement," said Joshua Walker, a former Turkey specialist at the State Department. "Turkey has been in a tough economic situation since the summer, and as we have seen with its relationship with Qatar, it is not above leveraging its relationships," he said, referring to a pledge by Qatar in August to invest $15 billion in Turkey.

There is no indication that Erdogan has asked for monetary compensation or political favors from Riyadh, but Western diplomats suspected that Saudi Arabia would compensate Turkey if it blessed the kingdom's explanation for Khashoggi's disappearance - a payback that could come in the form of large-scale debt relief, strategic buyouts or other arrangements.

"Right now what Turkey needs most is financial support. The economy is still brittle, it hasn't recovered from the crash of its currency this summer, and Turkey is expected to face a massive fine for Iran-related sanctions," said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Erdogan is a master of creating an opportunity out of a crisis," he said. "He's an excellent politician in that regard, and he's looking for an opportunity."

But Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Turkey's goals were primarily strategic and that it was looking, among other things, for a "readjustment of U.S. policy" that had relied heavily on the Saudi crown prince as the linchpin of the Trump administration's strategy to isolate Iran.

"They don't want the Americans to base their whole policy on Mohammed bin Salman," she said, but at the same time, Turkey does not expect the United States to pivot from the alliance with Saudi Arabia. Turkey's aim, she added, is to deter "the more thuggish behavior associated with Mohammed bin Salman and the United Arab Emirates," a key Saudi ally.

But the leaks, and the pressure they created, carry risks for Turkey as it tries to avoid a total diplomatic break with the Saudis and worries about Saudi retaliation, analysts said.

Erdogan "doesn't want to go it alone against the Saudis," said Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institute's Center for Turkish Studies. "They want to frame this as a world problem."

Pompeo on Thursday said he had asked the White House to give Saudi Arabia "a few more days to complete" its investigation, even as he came under fire for failing to get answers about Khashoggi's fate in his fact-finding mission to Riyadh and Ankara this week.

The Saudi crown prince, in private discussions with U.S. officials, had vociferously denied any involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance, saying he would never be so stupid as to order the type of assassination being alleged, according to diplomats familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. Critics had accused the United States of buying the Saudis time to come up with a plausible scenario that exonerated the crown prince.

But as Turkish authorities continued to leak more gruesome details to the press, Trump took an increasingly dim view of the situation, acknowledging for the first time Thursday that he believed Khashoggi was no longer alive.

One day later, Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged Khashoggi's death, more than two weeks after he disappeared.

Read More

Saudi Arabia Admits Khashoggi Died in Consulate; Trump Says Saudi Account Credible

Saudi Arabia's acknowledgement that Khashoggi died in the consulate came after two weeks of denials that it had anything to do with his disappearance, and followed growing demands from Western allies for an explanation of what happened.

Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight inside its Istanbul consulate and that it fired two senior officials over his death, an account President Donald Trump said was credible but which drew deep scepticism from US lawmakers.

Saudi Arabia’s acknowledgement that Khashoggi died in the consulate came after two weeks of denials that it had anything to do with his disappearance, and followed growing demands from Western allies for an explanation of what happened.

His disappearance sparked a global outcry and prompted some US lawmakers to call for harsh action against Riyadh.

Saudi state media said King Salman had ordered the dismissal of two senior officials: Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court adviser seen as the right-hand man to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Asiri, a statement on state media said.

Saudi Arabia provided no evidence to support its account of the circumstances that led to Khashoggi’s death and it was unclear whether Western allies would be satisfied with the Saudi version of events.

“I think it’s a good first step, it’s a big step. It’s a lot of people, a lot of people involved, and I think it’s a great first step,” Trump, who has made close ties with Saudi Arabia a centrepiece of his foreign policy, told reporters in Arizona.

“Saudi Arabia has been a great ally. What happened is unacceptable,” he said, adding that he would speak with the crown prince.

Trump also emphasized Riyadh’s importance in countering regional rival Iran and the importance for American jobs of massive US arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Some US lawmakers, however, were unpersuaded by Riyadh’s account.

“To say that I am sceptical of the new Saudi narrative about Mr. Khashoggi is an understatement,” said Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who has been sharply critical of Saudi Arabia over the incident.

Trump said he would be working with Congress on next moves, but “I would prefer that we don’t use as retribution cancelling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs …. we need them as a counterbalance to Iran.”

Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince who lived in the US and was a Washington Post columnist, had led to mounting pressure from the West on Saudi Arabia to provide convincing answers.

He went missing after entering the consulate on Oct. 2 to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. Days later, Turkish officials said they believed he was killed in the building, an allegation that Saudi Arabia had, until now, strenuously denied.

In a separate statement on Saturday, the Saudi public prosecutor said a fight broke out between Khashoggi and people who met him in the consulate, leading to his death.

“The investigations are still underway and 18 Saudi nationals have been arrested,” the statement said.

Turkish sources have told Reuters the authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate. Turkish pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak has published what it said were details from the audio. It said Khashoggi’s torturers cut off his fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him.

Before the Saudi announcements, Trump said he might consider sanctions, although he has also appeared unwilling to distance himself too much from the Saudi leadership.

Other Western allies have yet to react to Riyadh’s explanation and the main question will be whether they believe that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has painted himself as a reformer, has no culpability.

King Salman has handed the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia to his son, commonly known as MbS.

But, the disappearance of Khashoggi has tarnished Prince Mohammed’s reputation and deepened questions about his leadership.

And, the growing crisis prompted the king to intervene, five sources with links to the Saudi royal family told Reuters.

The king also ordered the formation of a ministerial committee headed by the crown prince to restructure the general intelligence agency, state media said on Friday, suggesting MbS still retained wide-ranging authorities.

The White House said in a statement that it had seen the Saudi announcement and would continue to press for “justice that is timely, transparent, and in accordance with all due process.”

Republican Senator Rand Paul tweeted: “We should also halt all military sales, aid and cooperation immediately. There must be a severe price for these actions by Saudi Arabia.”

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN the Saudi explanation “absolutely defies credibility”.

In an early rebuke to Riyadh, senior officials from several governments, including US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, executives from major companies, and international media commentators withdrew from a high-profile investment conference slated for later this month.

‘No orders to kill him’

Qahtani, 40, entered the royal court under the late King Abdullah but only rose to prominence after latching onto Prince Mohammed, becoming a rare confidante in his secretive inner circle.

Sources say Qahtani would regularly speak on behalf of the crown prince and has given direct orders to senior officials including in the country’s security apparatus.

People close to Khashoggi and the government said Qahtani had tried to lure him back to Saudi Arabia after he moved to Washington a year ago fearing reprisals for his views.

In a Twitter thread from August 2017 asking his 1.35 million followers to flag accounts to include in a blacklist for monitoring, Qahtani wrote: “Do you think I make decisions without guidance? I am an employee and a faithful executor of the orders of my lord the king and my lord the faithful crown prince.”

The other dismissed official, Asiri had joined the Saudi military in 2002, according to Saudi media reports, serving as spokesman for a coalition backing Yemen’s ousted president after Prince Mohammed led Saudi Arabia into that country’s civil war in 2015. Asiri was named deputy chief of foreign intelligence by royal decree in April 2017.

The crown prince had no knowledge of the specific operation that resulted in Khashoggi’s death, a Saudi official familiar with the investigation said.

“There were no orders for them to kill him or even specifically kidnap him,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity and adding that there was a standing order to bring critics of the kingdom back to the country.

“MbS had no knowledge of this specific operation and certainly did not order a kidnapping or murder of anybody. He will have been aware of the general instruction to tell people to come back,” the official said.

The official said the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s body were unclear after it was handed over to a “local cooperator” but there was no sign of it at the consulate.

The public prosecutor’s statement did not specify where the operatives had put Khashoggi’s body or if they plan to inform the Turks. The Saudi official told Reuters, “We don’t know for certain what happened to the body.”

Saudi critics said it was obvious the authorities didn’t want to hand over Khashoggi’s body as it would reveal how badly he was tortured.

In Istanbul, Turkish prosecutors investigating Khashoggi’s disappearance questioned Turkish employees of the Saudi consulate on Friday. Turkish police searched a forest on Istanbul’s outskirts and a city near the Sea of Marmara for Khashoggi’s remains, two senior Turkish officials told Reuters.

Read More

Trump says Certainly looks like Khashoggi is Dead, Saudi Would Suffer

U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters about journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance prior to boarding Air Force One for travel to Montana from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., October 18, 2018. (Reuters Photo)

Certainly it looks like missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, U.S. President Donald Trump said late Thursday, adding that Saudi Arabia would suffer "very severe" consequences if found to be responsible for his murder.

"It certainly looks that way to me," Trump told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base when asked if Khashoggi was dead. "It's very sad."

Trump, who has insisted that more facts must be known before making assumptions about Khashoggi, did not say on what he based his statement on the writer's demise two weeks ago.

As the U.S. toughened its response to Khashoggi's disappearance, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulled out of a major Saudi investment conference Thursday amid global pressure. However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier Thursday that the United States would give ally Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to probe Khashoggi's alleged murder, again delaying a U.S. response to the mounting scandal.

Pompeo, who reported earlier to President Donald Trump on his trip to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, told journalists at the White House that the Saudis assured him "they will conduct a complete, thorough investigation."

"I told President Trump this morning we ought to give them a few more days to complete that, so that we too have a complete understanding of the facts," Pompeo said.

Only then, Pompeo said, "we can make decisions how or if the United States should respond."

Trump has come under fire from members of Congress for his repeated delays in forming a response, as evidence mounts that Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago.

Turkish reports say Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate by members of an assassination squad with ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudis have dismissed those reports as baseless but have yet to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who was seen on video entering the consulate but has not been seen since.

A former regime insider, Khashoggi had become a critic of powerful the crown prince, the point man in ever-tightening military and commercial relations between the Muslim petro-state and the Trump administration.

Call for UN probe

Four prominent human rights and press freedom groups on Thursday urged Turkey to request a United Nations investigation to prevent a "whitewash" of the alleged crime.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders said such a probe established by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would finally clear up the affair.

But the United States, the Saudis' most powerful patron, has been in no rush to escalate the scandal.

Repeatedly giving the Saudi royals the benefit of the doubt, Trump and top officials have instead stressed that the U.S.-Saudi relationship is too important to put at risk.

Trump has repeatedly praised massive Saudi arms purchases, while Pompeo used much of his brief remarks on Thursday to recall Washington's "long strategic relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

The Saudis "continue to be an important counter-terrorism partner, they have custody of the two holy sites ... We need to be mindful of that as well," he said.

Market takes a hit

The furor has also blown a hole in next week's Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, which was meant to showcase Prince Mohammed's plans for modernizing the desert kingdom.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said he was pulling out Thursday, joining senior ministers from Britain, France and the Netherlands, as well as a string of corporate leaders.

Mnuchin's announcement on Twitter helped push down stock prices on Wall Street.

Mnuchin's withdrawal "raises worry that the administration is being pushed to take a harder line against Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi murder and there could be retaliation," said Karl Haeling of LBBW.

Responses from Saudi Arabia could include selling US Treasuries, or punishing US companies seeking business in the kingdom, Haeling said.

Most analysts don't think Saudi Arabia would cut off oil supplies. Oil prices were off modestly at midday.

Read More

Saudi Arabia to supply extra oil cargoes to India in Nov as Iran sanctions loom

FILE PHOTO: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih addresses the media flanked by India's Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser during International Energy Forum (IEF) to announce Saudi Aramco's participation in the planned refinery project in western state of Maharashtra, in New Delhi, India, April 11, 2018 REUTERS

The extra cargoes indicate a willingness by Saudi Arabia to increase crude supply to make up the shortfall once sanctions by the United States on oil exports from Iran, the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), start up on November 4

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, will supply Indian buyers with an additional 4 million barrels of crude oil in November, several sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The extra cargoes indicate a willingness by Saudi Arabia to increase crude supply to make up the shortfall once sanctions by the United States on oil exports from Iran, the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), start up on November 4.

India is Iran's top oil client after China, though several refiners have indicated they will stop taking Iranian barrels because of the sanctions.

Reliance Industries Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp , Bharat Petroleum Corp and Mangalore Refinery Petrochemicals Ltd are seeking an additional 1 million barrels each in November from Saudi Arabia, the sources said.

Three of the companies did not immediately reply to an email from Reuters seeking comment. MRPL replied "no comments" when contacted by email.

State-owned oil producer Saudi Aramco was not immediately available for comment.

Given their dependence on Iranian oil supplies, the Indian refiners are concerned about the loss of Iranian crude once the sanctions start and are seeking exemptions. Refiners in the country have placed orders to buy 9 million barrels from Iran in November.

One of the reasons for the additional demand for Saudi oil is that the crude arbitrage from the United States is shut so the Indian buyers have to turn to Middle Eastern barrels, said one of the sources.

India, the world's third biggest oil importer, is grappling with a combination of rising oil prices and falling local currency, which makes imports of dollar-denominated oil more expensive. Retail prices for gasoline and diesel fuel in India are at record highs and the government has cut its excise tax on fuel to ease some of the pain for consumers.

Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday that he spoke with Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih last week and reminded him that OPEC and other major oil producers had promised to raise their output at a meeting in June.

India imports an average of 25 million barrels per month from Saudi Arabia.

Reuters last week reported that Russia and Saudi Arabia, the world's two biggest oil producers, struck a private deal in September to raise output to cool rising prices and had informed the United States about the decision.

Source: (Dhaka Tribune)

Read More