The talks between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Joe Biden in Jeddah on Friday were not only comprehensive, but frank, said a Saudi sources.
He said Biden spoke of common values, to which Crown Prince Mohammed replied: “All countries of the world, especially the US and Saudi Arabia, have a lot of values that they agree upon, and several that they differ over.”
“However, right and good values and principles always affect peoples of other countries, significantly at a time when we are witnessing such unprecedented connectedness between people of the world,” he added.
Meanwhile, attempting to impose these values by force will have major counter-effects, as seen in Iraq and the Afghanistan, where the US did not succeed.
It is therefore, important to realize that each country enjoys different values that must be respected.
“If we were to assume that the US would only deal with countries that completely share its values, then it will only have NATO to deal with,” added the source.
“We must, therefore, coexist despite our differences,” he urged.
Biden briefly addressed the issue of Jamal Khashoggi, to which Crown Prince Mohammed said: “What happened was unfortunate and the Kingdom has taken all measures to investigate the issue.”
“It has also adopted measures that would prevent such mistakes from happening again in the future,” he remarked.
Furthermore, Crown Prince Mohammed said that such incidents happen anywhere in the world. He noted that the same year the incident happened, other journalists were killed in other parts of the world.
He stressed that the US is itself guilty of several mistakes, such as the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Countries must address these mistakes and take measures that would prevent them from happening again, he stated.
Moreover, he noted the recent killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and whether the US and world countries had taken any measures to address it.
