WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not going to have a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman during his trip to the region next month and that he was only seeing the Saudi crown prince as part of a broader “international meeting.”
“I’m not going to meet with MBS. I’m going to an international meeting, and he’s going to be part of it,” Biden told reporters on Friday when asked how during his Saudi Arabia trip he will handle the topic of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing.
Biden’s plan for talks with the crown prince – part of his first trip to the region as president – were seen by rights advocates as at odds with his promise to put human rights at the heart of U.S. foreign policy.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh in Washington)
