BEIRUT, Lebanon — Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s arrival in the White House may signal the start of a less congenial American relationship with Saudi Arabia, but the kingdom could point to recent progress on a number of issues that have caused longstanding friction with the United States. Long one of the world’s most prodigious executioners, […]
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Officials from Saudi Arabia and Qatar did not immediately confirm that there was an agreement between the two countries. The Gulf countries’ decision in 2017 to cut ties with Qatar, severing diplomatic relations and suspending land, air and sea travel, forced the tiny monarchy into immediate crisis. Trade and commerce that used to flow smoothly […]
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In 2015, after King Salman succeeded King Abdullah, my father wanted to remind the king of his promise of reforms in Saudi Arabia. While appearing on Saudi national television, my father recounted how Crown Prince Salman had told him that political reforms and rights which my father long championed would be at the top of […]
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Women in Saudi Arabia have been allowed to drive since the kingdom lifted the ban in June 2018, one of the historic social reforms inaugurated over the last few years by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. Under the crown prince, the kingdom has encouraged women to work and loosened […]
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Bryan Fogel’s first documentary, “Icarus,” helped uncover the Russian doping scandal that led to the country’s expulsion from the 2018 Winter Olympics. It also won an Oscar for him and for Netflix, which released the film. For his second project, he chose another subject with global interest: the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian […]
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering a request to grant Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia immunity from a federal lawsuit that accuses him of trying to kill a former Saudi intelligence official living in Canada, legal documents related to the case show. If the request is granted, the State Department’s recommendation […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel flew to Saudi Arabia for a covert meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Israeli news media reported on Monday. Hours after those reports, attributed to an unidentified Israeli official, the Saudi foreign minister flatly and publicly denied that such a meeting had […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel flew to Saudi Arabia for a covert meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Israeli news media reported on Monday. The reported visit, Sunday night, would be the first known meeting between high-level Israeli and Saudi leaders and could signal an acceleration of […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — For Saudi Arabia, hosting the Group of 20 summit in Riyadh this year was supposed to cement its global stature. Heads of state from the world’s richest nations were to be wowed by the kingdom’s rugged beauty and changing society — and encouraged to let its war in Yemen and murder of […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — For the last four years, President Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia meant that there was seemingly nothing its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, could do to earn a rebuke from the White House. Saudi bombs killed civilians in Yemen, Saudi activists went to jail, and Saudi agents dismembered […]
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WASHINGTON — The fiancée of the slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in a lawsuit on Tuesday of murder and dismemberment in an attempt to silence Mr. Khashoggi’s criticism of the kingdom. The lawsuit also names more than two dozen other Saudis, including people now imprisoned […]
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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to the State Department briefing room ready to punish. On Sept. 2, he took to the lectern and called the International Criminal Court — which investigates war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — a “thoroughly broken and corrupted institution.” Then he announced sanctions on the tribunal’s […]
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Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times For all the sound and fury, Trump’s foreign policy has few accomplishments. Oct. 16, 2020 Kathleen Kingsbury, acting editorial page editor, wrote about the editorial board’s verdict on Donald Trump’s presidency in a special edition of our Opinion Today newsletter. You can read it here. This month, with […]
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VISION OR MIRAGESaudi Arabia at the CrossroadsBy David H. RundellBLOOD AND OILMohammed bin Salman’s Ruthless Quest for Global PowerBy Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck One of my most embarrassing moments in government came in 1995. I was a young staffer at the National Security Council, and a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia suggested growing unrest […]
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JERUSALEM — He moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, breaking with those who said it would ignite the Muslim world. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and ordered the killing of a top Iranian general, defying those who said those moves would lead to war. He brokered treaties between Israel and two […]
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His death horrified the world. On Oct. 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist and outspoken critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. After a cover-up, Saudi Arabia issued verdicts in a secret trial that absolved Prince Mohammed of any wrongdoing. Yet the Central […]
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It’s fair to assume that Saudi Arabia’s turbulent prince, Mohammed bin Salman, would love to give President Trump an October gift of normalized Saudi relations with Israel. The last thing M.B.S. wants is a Joe Biden victory accompanied by renewed opprobrium over the Saudi murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a more balanced American […]
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JERUSALEM — Since its founding, Israel has seen itself as a modern-day Sparta, a tiny fortress nation-state in a hostile desert, whose survival depended on its internal cohesion and sheer military strength. All around it were Arab and Muslim enemies who denounced the Jewish state as a colonizing interloper, an outpost of foreign intruders who […]
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President Trump made a bit of history on Friday when he announced the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain would establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. Bahrain’s move, a month after the United Arab Emirates normalized relations, brings the number of Arab countries that recognize Israel to four (Egypt did so in 1979, Jordan in 1994), […]
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The tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain lost much of its autonomy nearly a decade ago, when its rulers turned to their neighbor Saudi Arabia to save them from an Arab Spring uprising threatening their power. So Bahrain’s announcement on Friday that it would become the fourth Arab state to normalize relations with Israel was […]
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A Saudi court on Monday issued final verdicts in the killing of the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi, months after one of his sons said he and his siblings had forgiven the men who killed him, effectively eliminating the possibility that the defendants would be executed. Saudi state television announced that five of the eight defendants […]
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CAIRO — King Salman of Saudi Arabia fired two members of the royal family and referred them, along with four military officers, for investigation into corruption at the defense ministry, according to a royal decree issued early on Tuesday and carried by state news media. The decree said Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Abdulaziz Al […]
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has accelerated a push to sell the F-35 stealth fighter and advanced armed drones to the United Arab Emirates, at a time when the Gulf nation is working with the Trump administration on a historic plan to formalize diplomatic ties with Israel, according to American officials familiar with the discussions. […]
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MADRID — One of my first assignments as a reporter, in 1996, was to interview an alleged lover of the king of Spain, Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón. My editors at El Mundo asked me to look into whether Bárbara Rey, a Spanish film and television actress, demanded money from the state in exchange […]
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MADRID — One of my first assignments as a reporter, in 1996, was to interview an alleged lover of the king of Spain, Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón. My editors at El Mundo asked me to look into whether Bárbara Rey, a Spanish film and television actress, demanded money from the state in exchange […]
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BEIRUT — A former top Saudi intelligence official publicly accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday of sending a team of agents to Canada to kill him. The allegation came in a lawsuit filed in United States federal court on Thursday by the former official, Saad Aljabri, who has accused Prince Mohammed of seeking […]
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American intelligence agencies are scrutinizing efforts by Saudi Arabia to build up its ability to produce nuclear fuel that could put the kingdom on a path to developing nuclear weapons. Spy agencies in recent weeks circulated a classified analysis about the efforts underway inside Saudi Arabia, working with China, to build industrial capacity to produce […]
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A former president of Iran, known in the West for speeches that assert the Holocaust was invented and that Israel should be erased from the map, has written a chummy letter to his country’s most ardent Arab foe: the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. So far, at least, it appears to be a one-way exchange. […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — As Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia sidelined rivals to consolidate power a few years ago, a former Saudi intelligence official feared that he would end up in the prince’s sights and slipped out of the kingdom. The prince has been trying to get him back since, first asking the […]
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