Saudi Crown Prince to visit Greece and France

He is scheduled to meet with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis

July 26 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salmán, resumes his diplomatic agenda after meeting with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and will hold these days meetings with Greek and French leaders on his first trip to member countries of the European Union since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashogi at the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul in October 2018.

These visits, as reported by the state news agency SPA, take place with the aim of “discussing bilateral relations and ways to improve them in various fields”, as well as dealing with “issues of common interest”.

The Greek Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the crown prince will meet with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Likewise, a Greek diplomatic source has indicated that bilateral agreements will be signed on matters such as energy and military cooperation, as reported by the newspaper ‘Ekathimerini’.

Mitsotakis was one of several Western leaders to visit Riyadh since Khashogi’s assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The meeting follows the two business forums held this year in Riyadh last March and also in Athens at the end of May.

Jashogi, a columnist for the newspaper ‘The Washington Post’, went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to collect some papers to be able to marry his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. However, he was never heard from again, his remains have not been found and the Turkish and Western intelligence services suggest that the order to kill him could only come from the highest echelons of the Saudi kingdom.

Due to the current fuel crisis due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the increase in oil production was one of the topics of the recent meeting between Biden and Bin Salmán, highly criticized for the Khashogi case, since a declassified report of the CIA points to him as responsible for the murder of Khashogi in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul in October 2018.