Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he had read the US intelligence report on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which will soon be made public and is potentially explosive for the crown prince and relations between Washington and Riyadh.
"Yes, I read it,"
the Democratic president told reporters questioning him on the subject.
Read also: Murder of Khashoggi: American intelligence forced to take a step towards transparency
The White House announced that Joe Biden will
"soon"
speak for the first time to the King of Saudi Arabia and release the US intelligence report.
Asked about an article by the Axios news site that the phone call with King Salman was scheduled for Wednesday before a release of the report on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki and the president a few hours later did not did not want to confirm this timing.
The call
"will take place soon, we are still in the process of programming the precise moment,
" she told reporters on Wednesday.
And the
"declassified report"
will also be published
"soon"
by the director of national intelligence Avril Haines, she added, without further details.
The new President of the United States has not yet spoken with the Saudi leaders, very close allies of his predecessor Donald Trump in the Middle East.
But he said he would speak when the time came to King Salman rather than Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salman, known as “MBS”, a privileged interlocutor of Trumpist diplomacy.
"Recalibrate"
Jen Psaki confirmed Joe Biden's intention to
“recalibrate”
the relationship with Riyadh in relation to the previous American government, often accused of having overlooked human rights.
"This means that he will not remain silent, he will say loud and clear when he has concerns about human rights violations, about a lack of freedom of the press and of expression,"
he said. she insists.
The publication of the Khashoggi report should be the first test of this
"recalibration".
The Saudi journalist, resident in the United States and columnist for the daily Washington Post, was assassinated in 2018 in his country's consulate in Istanbul by Saudi agents.
The US Senate, which had access to the findings of the intelligence services of the world's leading power, had at the time ruled that the crown prince was
"responsible"
for the murder.
According to the CNN channel, which consulted court documents, the two private planes used by the commando which killed the journalist
"belonged to a company seized less than a year earlier by the powerful crown prince".
But Donald Trump had never wanted to publicly blame “MBS” to preserve the alliance with Riyadh, a pillar of his anti-Iran strategy and a big buyer of American arms.
"I saved his skin,"
he even admitted to American journalist Bob Woodward.
Still in opposition, Joe Biden had himself ruled that Saudi Arabia should be treated as a
"pariah" state
because of this affair and its human rights abuses.
"I would certainly not say that his concerns or his opinion have changed, but of course he is now President of the United States"
and
"there are also matters on which we will be working with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia",
notably to counter
regional
“threats”
, qualified the spokesperson for the White House.
She did not want to say what the consequences would be if the soon-to-be-released report established the direct responsibility of "MBS" in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.