This is a textbook case: the very example of a change of diplomatic footing, where realpolitik and business end up crushing questions of morality. MBS, Mohammed Ben Salmane, welcomed with honors in Turkey, this can cause a retching. Let us recall the facts: in October 2018, almost four years ago, the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the power of Riyadh, was assassinated in Turkey, in the premises of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. He is killed in atrocious circumstances: cut into pieces, with a saw, by Saudi agents. Turkey has the proof, the CIA too. And they point the finger at the sponsor: the top of the Saudi state, probably MBS or his entourage. The prince becomes infrequent.
Four years later, Turkey and the Westerners with it, swallow their hats. Forget the assassination. Moreover, last April, the Turkish justice buried the investigation since it transmitted the file to Saudi Arabia. To have the murder judged by its presumed author, it was necessary to think about it.
Today, therefore, is the official reconciliation largely for stories of big money. Many contracts are expected to be signed during this visit of MBS to Ankara. On the one hand, Turkish President Erdogan needs foreign investment. It is faced with galloping inflation (+70%) and a fall in the Turkish currency (-25% in 6 months). One year from the general elections in Turkey (if the date is not brought forward), Erdogan desperately needs to see the purchasing power of the Turks rise again. So a few billion Saudis would be welcome, for example in the construction industry or the food industry.
In the other direction, Saudi Arabia is interested in Turkish military hardware, especially drones. And it also seeks to cement a front of Sunni Islamic countries against its great rival, Shiite Iran. So everything is in place for a reconciliation.
And it’s not just Turkey to patch things up with the Saudis. Last December, Emmanuel Macron was the first Western leader to travel from Riyadh to meet MBS. And the final symbol of the rehabilitation of Mohammed Bin Salman will take place in mid-July with the visit to Saudi Arabia of the American Joe Biden. Yet he too, when he arrived at the White House, he had sworn to his great gods that the Saudis “would pay the price”would be “treated as pariahs”, after the assassination of Khashoggi. Especially since the latter worked for the American daily washington post. All this is forgotten.
Here too, the economy dictates its law. Inflation is approaching 10% in the United States, the price of gasoline is beating down the Biden presidency six months before the mid-term elections. Washington needs a helping hand from Riyadh, the world’s second largest oil producer, to curb oil prices. A fortiori with the tension created by the war in Ukraine on Russian gas and oil. The Saudis have just announced their intention to increase their production, in July and August, to ease the tension on the market.
It should be added that the United States also sees favorably the ongoing rapprochement between the giant of the Persian Gulf and Israel. And so the appalling assassination of Jamal Khashoggi is disappearing from the diplomatic landscape.