US Senate considers legislation to punish Saudi Arabia

The US Senate is expected to vote on legislation aimed at punishing Saudi Arabia over its brutal war on Yemen as well as the murder of a dissident journalist at its consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday that the upper chamber could vote on the resolution within weeks prior to the end of the year.

Corker said that the legislation seeks to stop all assistance to the Kingdom, adding measures to end arms sales to Riyadh would also be discussed at the Senate.

“Senators are looking for some way to show Saudi Arabia the disdain they have for what has happened, with the journalist, but also concerns about the way Yemen has gone,” Corker told Reuters.

“It would be very hard, if a weapons sale came up, to keep it from being undone, at least in the Senate,” Corker said.

Saudi Arabia has come under fierce criticism after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside its consulate on October 2.

Khashoggi, a prominent commentator on Saudi affairs who wrote for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, had lived in self-imposed exile in the US since September 2017, when he left Saudi Arabia over fears of the Riyadh regime’s crackdown on critical voices.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a prime suspect in the murder plot. 

Bin Salman has also been leading a devastating war on Yemen since 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Yemen's former Riyadh-allied regime and crush the Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government.

MG