Mnuchin to skip Saudi investment conference

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PUTIN SAYS CAN’T JUSTIFY SPOILING SAUDI TIES OVER KHASHOGGI

WASHINGTON, Oct 18, (Agencies): US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday he will skip next week’s Saudi investment summit, dealing another blow to Riyadh following the suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia,” Mnuchin announced on Twitter after meeting with US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo had just returned from Saudi Arabia and briefed Trump on the status of the investigation into the journalist’s disappearance in Turkey. With Wall Street already teetering on Thursday, Mnuchin’s announcement sent US stocks tumbling, adding to losses from a recent sell-off.

Prominent business partners of Saudi Arabia and investors, including companies with significant investment from Riyadh, have fl ed the conference since Khashoggi’s disappearance on Oct 2 during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Khashoggi was a prominent political and human rights critic of the Saudi government who had been living in the United States. While withholding judgment on the case, Trump and Pompeo in recent days have stressed the depth of US-Saudi cooperation in financial and counter terrorism matters stretching back for almost a century.

Pompeo says he told Saudi Arabia’s rulers that the US takes “very seriously” the disappearance of Khashoggi and will await the outcome of investigations by the Kingdom and Turkey before deciding how the US will respond. Pompeo addressed reporters Thursday after briefing Trump at the White House on his talks with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Pompeo says the Saudis assured him they will conduct a “complete, thorough” investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Enough information
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia did not have enough information about the unexplained disappearance of the Saudi journalist to justify spoiling ties with Riyadh. Putin told a discussion forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that Moscow did not really know what had happened in the case, that it was a pity that the journalist had gone missing, and that Russia would wait for details.

Meanwhile, senior ministers from Britain, France and The Netherlands on Thursday pulled out of a major investment conference in Saudi Arabia, expressing deep concern over the disappearance of Khashoggi.

The ministers joined a slew of corporate bigwigs who are now shunning next week’s Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, touted as a showcase for the economic reforms of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Like the United States, Britain and France are leading suppliers of arms to the Kingdom, but yanked top-level representation at the Oct 23-25 conference, dubbed “Davos in the Desert”. British International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said “the time is not right” to go to Riyadh. Khashoggi, who was living in self-imposed exile in the United States where he contributed to the Washington Post, vanished after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct 2.

Concerned
“The UK remains very concerned about Khashoggi’s disappearance,” a British government spokesperson said in a statement, insisting that the Saudis abide by their pledge to carry out a full and transparent investigation. “Those bearing responsibility for his disappearance must be held to account.” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire also said he would not be attending the Saudi conference, saying: “The current circumstances do not allow me to go to Riyadh” and describing Khashoggi’s disappearance as a “very serious” matter. And President Emmanuel Macron’s office concurred, saying “pending the outcome of the investigation, it was not appropriate for France to be represented at this level”.

The Netherlands also said Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra was no longer going to the conference, and that it was also cancelling a planned trade mission to Saudi in December. Working with the EU and other partners, the Dutch government would “look at ways international concerns about Khashoggi could be addressed”, Foreign Minister Stef Blok said.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde already pulled out of the conference this week along with several Western business leaders and media groups. Patrice Caine, the chairman and chief executive of French defence electronics group Thales, has decided not to attend a Saudi investment conference next week, amid global concerns over the fate of a missing Saudi journalist. A spokesman for Thales added that the French company would nevertheless be represented at the event, by Jean- Loic Galle, who is an executive at Thales’ space division.

SAP, Europe’s most valuable tech company, will continue to do business in Saudi Arabia, a top executive told Reuters, saying he hoped the circumstances of the disappearance Khashoggi are clarified. “We can’t put a long-term commitment to a market into question in response to an isolated incident,” Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic told Reuters. “Having said that, I would hope that this case can be cleared up as soon as possible.” Mucic had not been planning to attend a conference in Saudi Arabia next week that has been hit by highprofile cancellations amid concerns that Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He did attend the event last year but, this year, SAP will send a regional executive to attend. “I visit the country regularly and see high growth potential — and high actual growth in the private sector,” Mucic said in an interview. “We can’t abandon these customers — we have to deliver on our promise to be a long-term partner.” The $140 billion German business software firm says it is growing strongly in Saudi Arabia and opened its first data centre in the desert Kingdom this year.

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