Al Jazeera News, Washington, DC :
As the US Senate moved to vote on Thursday on a resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for its conduct of the war in Yemen and the assassination of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a bipartisan group of senators vowed to impose concrete sanctions on the kingdom in legislation next year.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said on Wednesday that the group plans to advance legislation imposing financial penalties and prohibiting arms sales when the new Congress begins in January.
In some of their strongest comments to date, senators signalled they would like to see Saudi Arabia remove Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman from power. “To our friends in Saudi Arabia, you are never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change. And it’s up to you to figure out what that change needs to be,” Graham, a congressional ally of President Donald Trump, told reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference.
“From my point of view, the current construct is not working. There is a relationship between countries and individuals. The individual, the crown prince, is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed that I can’t ever see myself doing business in the future with Saudi Arabia unless there is a change there,” Graham said.
Members of Congress have said US intelligence has tied the October 2 murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to Prince Mohammed, who also launched a Saudi-led military campaign in neighbouring Yemen in 2015. The Senate voted 60-39 on Wednesday to advance debate on a war powers resolution that would force the Trump administration to withdraw US military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, where an estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in what has been described by the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
As the US Senate moved to vote on Thursday on a resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for its conduct of the war in Yemen and the assassination of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a bipartisan group of senators vowed to impose concrete sanctions on the kingdom in legislation next year.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said on Wednesday that the group plans to advance legislation imposing financial penalties and prohibiting arms sales when the new Congress begins in January.
In some of their strongest comments to date, senators signalled they would like to see Saudi Arabia remove Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman from power. “To our friends in Saudi Arabia, you are never going to have a relationship with the United States Senate unless things change. And it’s up to you to figure out what that change needs to be,” Graham, a congressional ally of President Donald Trump, told reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference.
“From my point of view, the current construct is not working. There is a relationship between countries and individuals. The individual, the crown prince, is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed that I can’t ever see myself doing business in the future with Saudi Arabia unless there is a change there,” Graham said.
Members of Congress have said US intelligence has tied the October 2 murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to Prince Mohammed, who also launched a Saudi-led military campaign in neighbouring Yemen in 2015. The Senate voted 60-39 on Wednesday to advance debate on a war powers resolution that would force the Trump administration to withdraw US military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, where an estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in what has been described by the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
