Wednesday 20 April 2016

Obama Lands in Saudi Arabia, Fears Repercussions of Releasing 9/11 Report


Hours ahead of landing in Saudi Arabia, US President Barack Obama tried to assure Riyadh as tensions notably escalated after the wars in Syria and Yemen, as well as the pressure to release the 9/11 Commission report.

US President Barack Obama shaking hands with the Saudi King

After his early-afternoon arrival in the Saudi capital, Obama is to hold talks with King Salman, 80.
On Thursday, Obama will attend a summit with the six Gulf Cooperation Council monarchies, joined by US War Secretary Ashton Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Hours earlier, Obama assured that the classified pages of the 9/11 Commission report that do not “compromise major national security interests” may “hopefully” be soon released.
He argued against any potential legal action against Saudi citizens, however.
Obama, who is headed to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, discussed in an interview with Charlie Rose his relationship with the Saudi regime and the controversially classified 28 pages of the report, which some believe contain links between 9/11 terrorists or al-Qaeda and Saudi officials.
Former US Senator Bob Graham, who has seen the pages as intelligence committee chair, had already told the CBS program “60 Minutes” that he believes the Saudi government helped the 9/11 hijackers.
When asked by Rose if he had read the pages, Obama said he “had a sense of what’s in there.”
While admitting it has been a long time since the US intelligence started evaluating the data contained in the classified pages, Obama said that “a whole bunch of stuff” needs to be “verified.”
He hinted that “hopefully this process will come to a head very soon.”
“But this has been a process which we generally deal through the intelligence community, and Jim Clapper, our director of intelligence, has been going through to make sure that whatever it is that is released, is not going to compromise some major national security interests of the United States, and my understanding is that he’s about to complete that process,” said Obama.
Rose also asked about legislation that would allow the relatives of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, but has yet to be voted on by the full body.
Obama has said that he doesn’t support the bill, due to the possibility of foreign citizens – presumably victims of US wars and drone strikes – suing the government.
“If we open up the possibility that individuals in the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries,” the commander-in-chief said.
The Saudis have reportedly threatened to sell its $750 billion in US assets if Congress passes the law.
Obama also discussed his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Rose interviewed for two hours last September in advance of his speech at the United Nations.
The US president commented on the phone conversation he had with Putin about Syria shortly before he recorded Monday’s interview.
“My call today to him was to indicate that we’re starting to see it fray more rapidly. And if the United States and Russia are not in sync about maintaining it and getting a political track and transition moving, then we could be back in a situation we were three, four weeks ago,” Obama told Rose.
Obama said Russia is “very much committed to maintaining the structure of the Syrian state, which in theory, we don’t object to either.”
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
20-04-2016 | 11:55
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