{"id":1145088,"date":"2023-07-20T17:38:27","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T17:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jul\/20\/the-guardian-view-on-saudi-arabia-and-the-west-dont-count-on-riyadh"},"modified":"2023-07-20T17:38:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T17:38:27","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-saudi-arabia-and-the-west-dont-count-on-riyadh-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/20\/the-guardian-view-on-saudi-arabia-and-the-west-dont-count-on-riyadh-editorial\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on Saudi Arabia and the west: don\u2019t count on Riyadh | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK has invited Mohammed bin Salman for an official visit. Relying on the kingdom for energy or regional stability is a grave error<\/p><p>Five years ago, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/speeches\/foreign-secretary-updates-the-house-of-commons-on-the-death-of-jamal-khashoggi\" title=\"\">echoed the widely voiced horror<\/a> at the murder of the Saudi dissident and journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/jamal-khashoggi\" title=\"\">Jamal Khashoggi<\/a> in Turkey. He promised that Britain\u2019s response would depend upon \u201cour confidence that such an appalling episode cannot \u2013 and will not \u2013 be repeated\u201d.<\/p><p>The UK has now invited Saudi Arabia\u2019s crown prince and de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA believe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/feb\/26\/jamal-khashoggi-mohammed-bin-salman-us-report\" title=\"\">approved the murder<\/a> despite his denials, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jul\/14\/uk-invites-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-to-visit\" title=\"\">for an official visit<\/a>. His rehabilitation was already under way when Joe Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2022\/jul\/15\/fist-bumps-as-joe-biden-arrives-to-reset-ties-with-pariah-saudi-arabia\" title=\"\">fistbumped him<\/a> a year ago, and Britain, which has profited richly from Saudi arms sales, is hungrier than ever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-59070025\" title=\"\">for trade and investment<\/a>.<\/p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jul\/20\/the-guardian-view-on-saudi-arabia-and-the-west-dont-count-on-riyadh\">Continue reading...<\/a>\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jul\/20\/the-guardian-view-on-saudi-arabia-and-the-west-dont-count-on-riyadh\">Human rights | The Guardian<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK has invited Mohammed bin Salman for an official visit. Relying on the kingdom for energy or regional stability is a grave errorFive years ago, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, echoed the widely voiced horror at the murder of the Saudi dissid&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3665,1258,2802,3290,84,1314,1315],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145089,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145088\/revisions\/1145089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}