Trump 'playing games' over Khashoggi’s disappearance: Analyst
US President Donald Trump is “playing games” with regard to the disappearance of a dissident Saudi journalist at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, says a political analyst.
Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and a US resident, disappeared on October 2 after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish authorities believe he was tortured and killed inside the building by a team of Saudi operatives who removed his dismembered body.
Trump, who has forged close ties with Saudi Arabia, has come under pressure at home and abroad to punish Riyadh if investigations show the regime had Khashoggi killed.
The president has not said what measures his administration would take if Saudi Arabia is found to be responsible, but he made clear any punishment would not involve suspending the arms deals.
“President Trump is simply playing games at this point, he knows very well, his intelligence people know very well that the Saudis are behind Khashoggi’s abduction and probable assassination,” Mark Dankof, a former US Senate candidate, told Press TV on Saturday.
“But the president is fully aware of other Saudi crimes, which the United States is fully complicit in, I’m referring to the Saudi support for the Sunni Wahhabi terrorists in Syria,” as well as “the genocidal war that Saudi Arabia has conducted in Yemen,” added the analyst.
“It’s very clear that the president couldn’t care less about Saudi crimes,” noting that he has already said “the US would continue to sell the $100 billion of weaponry.”
During a press conference on Saturday, Trump defended the deal he had announced with Riyadh last year, insisting that the deal was worth 450,000 jobs inside the US.
“If they don’t buy it from us, they’re going to buy it from Russia or they’re going to buy it from China,” he told reporters at the White House.
“Think of that, $110 billion, all they’re going to do is give it to other countries, and I think that would be very foolish,” he added.
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