Tag: Saudi

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been cleared of wrongdoing in a disputed arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies, according to his office, although the report on the internal investigation has not yet been released.

Pompeo was accused of abuse of power after he used an obscure emergency procedure to ram through $8.1bn in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan in May of last year.

At the time, members of Congress had been blocking weapons sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, angry about the huge civilian toll from their air campaign in Yemen, as well as human rights abuses such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

On Monday, a senior official at the Department of State, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said an internal probe concluded that the department had “acted in complete accordance with the law”.

The investigation by the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General “found no wrongdoing in the administration exercise of the emergency authorities that are available under the arms export control act”, the official added.

The comments – made before the report was made public – came after President Donald Trump abruptly fired then-Inspector General Steve Linick, who was looking into Pompeo’s certification, in May.

Linick, whose dismissal is being investigated by Congress, was also reportedly investigating allegations that Pompeo and his wife used staff for personal favours such as walking their dog.

He was succeeded by Stephen Akard, who resigned from his post last week after recusing himself from the arms sales investigation. The final report was completed by Akard’s deputy, Diana Shaw.

Linick was the fourth government inspector general removed by the Republican president in recent months, raising concern among Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans in Congress about curtailment of oversight.

In a statement, Representative Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was concerned that the State Department had discussed the report before it was released.

“The people briefing the press were the subjects of the IG’s probe, not the report’s authors. This obvious pre-spin of the findings reeks of an attempt to distract and mislead,” Engel said.

Source: aljazeera.com

Oil prices hit their highest in four months after two attacks on Saudi Arabian facilities on Saturday knocked out more than 5% of global supply.

At the start of trading, Brent crude jumped 19% to $71.95 a barrel, while the other major benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, rose 15% to $63.34.

Prices eased back slightly after US President Donald Trump authorised the release of US reserves.

It could take weeks before the Saudi facilities are fully back online.

The drone attacks on plants in the heartland of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry included hitting the world’s biggest petroleum-processing facility.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tehran was behind the attacks. Iran accused the US of “deceit.”

Read:Drones hit 2 Saudi Aramco oil facilities, cause fires

Later Mr Trump said in a tweet the US knew who the culprit was and was “locked and loaded” but waiting to hear from the Saudis about how they wanted to proceed.

In another tweet, he said there was “plenty of oil!”.

What will be the impact on oil supply?

The Saudis have not gone into any detail about the attacks, barring saying there were no casualties, but have given a few more indications about oil production.

Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said some of the fall in production would be made up by tapping huge storage facilities.

The kingdom is the world’s biggest oil exporter, shipping more than seven million barrels daily.

“Saudi authorities have claimed to control the fires, but this falls far short of extinguishing them,” said Abhishek Kumar, head of analytics at Interfax Energy in London. “The damage to facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais appears to be extensive, and it may be weeks before oil supplies are normalised.”

Read:U.S. briefly overtakes Saudi Arabia as top oil exporter IEA

Saudi Arabia is expected to tap into reserves so that exports can continue as normal this week.

However, Michael Tran, managing director of energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets in New York, said: “Even if the outage normalises quickly, the threat of sidelining nearly 6% of global oil production is no longer a hypothetical, a black swan or a fat tail. Welcome back, risk premium.”

What are the US accusations? Mr Pompeo said Tehran was behind the damaging attacks but gave no specific evidence to back up his accusations.

He has rejected claims by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels that they carried out the attacks.

Read:US blames Iran for attacks on Saudi oil facilties

Iran accused the US of “deceit” and its Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that “blaming Iran won’t end the disaster” in Yemen.

Yemen has been at war since 2015, when President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was forced to flee the capital Sanaa by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia backs President Hadi, and has led a coalition of regional countries against the rebels.

The US meanwhile has blamed Iran for other attacks on oil supplies in the region this year, amid continuing tension following Mr Trump’s decision to reinstate sanctions after abandoning the landmark international deal which limited Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Source: bbc.com