Macron hosts Saudi crown prince with oil, Iran, rights on agenda

PARIS, July 28 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron was internet hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday as a part of elevated Western efforts to courtroom the most important oil-producing state amid the warfare in Ukraine and faltering talks to revive a nuclear cope with Iran.

French opposition figures and human rights teams have criticised Macron’s resolution to ask to dinner on the Elysee Palace a person Western leaders imagine ordered the homicide in 2018 of outstanding Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“The rehabilitation of the murderous prince will probably be justified in France as in the US by arguments of realpolitik. However it’s really bargaining that predominates, let’s face it,” Amnesty Worldwide Secretary Normal Agnes Callamard mentioned on Twitter forward of Prince Mohammed’s go to.

Macron, who final December turned the primary Western chief to go to Saudi Arabia because the Khashoggi affair, has dismissed criticism of his efforts to interact the crown prince by saying the dominion was too necessary to be ignored.

Forward of a working dinner with bin Salman on Thursday night, Macron welcomed the Saudi chief with a protracted handshake in entrance of the red-carpeted stairs of the Elysee.

They made no feedback to the press.

The go to to Paris by the de facto Saudi ruler comes two weeks after he held talks in Saudi Arabia with U.S. President Joe Biden. The West is eager to reset relations with the Gulf Arab oil big because it seeks to counter the rising regional affect of Iran, Russia and China.

France and different European nations need to diversify their sources of power following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has seen Moscow lower fuel provides to Europe. Macron desires Riyadh, the world’s largest oil exporter, to boost manufacturing.

A French presidency official advised reporters Macron would convey up human rights questions, together with particular person circumstances, in addition to discussing oil manufacturing and the Iran nuclear deal. learn extra

France is one in all Riyadh’s essential arms suppliers however has confronted rising strain to evaluation its gross sales due to the humanitarian disaster, the world’s worst, in Yemen the place a Saudi-led coalition has been combating Iran-aligned Houthi rebels since 2015.

The killing of Khashoggi on the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked a world furore. U.S. intelligence concluded the crown prince had straight accepted the homicide of the Washington Submit columnist. The crown prince denied any position within the killing.

French prosecutors are finding out complaints filed in opposition to the prince over the Saudi position within the Yemen warfare.

Rights teams Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI),and TRIAL Worldwide mentioned on Thursday they’d filed a brand new criticism asking French authorities to open an investigation into the prince over the torture and killing of Khashoggi.

Reporting by John Irish; Enhancing by Mark Heinrich, Frank Jack Daniel and Hugh Lawson

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