Prince Turki bin Mohammed (4th row from front, left of pic) attends
the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of King Salman [photo
credit: SPA]
Suggestions that Mohammed bin Salman might return to the U.K. for the
first time since March 2018 – when he met with the Queen as well as
with then-Prime Minister Theresa May five months before the killing
of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul put the
brakes on the Crown Prince’s burgeoning international profile – began
with a CNN Arabic report
on 15 September, based on a ‘source close to the Saudi royal family’
which stated that the Crown Prince would travel to London on 18
September to offer condolences to King Charles III and then return to
Saudi Arabia before the funeral the next day. Articles in British media
outlets, such as the Guardian and Sky News
appeared to corroborate the CNN report although they too were based on
anonymous sources. On 17 September, the BBC’s respected security
correspondent, Frank Gardner, whose reporting of and contacts in the
Gulf go back three decades, stated that ‘sources close to the Saudi Embassy’ in London had confirmed the crown prince’s planned visit to London.
In the event, Mohammed bin Salman did not travel to the U.K. (just as
he did not for the COP 26 climate change conference in Glasgow in
November 2021, where, again, it had been suggested
in advance that he might attend). Prince Turki bin Mohammed Al Saud, a
minister of state and member of the Council of Ministers, represented the Kingdom at the funeral, just as his grandfather, then-prince (later King) Fahd, had done
at the Queen’s coronation, also in Westminster Abbey, in June 1953. A
son of Prince Mohammed bin Fahd, the longstanding former Governor of the
Eastern Province, Prince Turki is one of a coterie of younger princes –
others include Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud, the Minister of Interior, and
Prince Abdullah bin Bandar, the Minister of National Guard – appointed
by Mohammed bin Salman as the Crown Prince re-makes networks of
authority within the Al Saud among his own generation.
It remains unclear whether Mohammed bin Salman ever considered
traveling to London or whether the anonymous sources were floating a
trial balloon (to see how reports of a visit played out) or merely
indulging in speculation and passing on rumors that were unsubstantiated
in fact. The largely negative response to the media articles, which included a comment
by Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, that ‘The fact that MbS could
not attend the funeral is part of justice for Jamal’, indicates that, in
Britain at least, the Crown Prince still faces obstacles in
rehabilitating his image, his July fist-bump with Joe Biden and summer visits to Greece and France
notwithstanding. It also remains unclear whether Mohammed bin Salman
will travel to the U.K. (or the U.S.) without the protection accorded by
head of state immunity, which he reportedly has sought in the U.S., perhaps mindful of the arrest
(and 17 month detention) of General Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998
on the basis of an international arrest warrant and the principle of
universal jurisdiction.
Whether (or not) Mohammed bin Salman is able or willing to visit the
U.K. or the U.S. may be immaterial in Saudi thinking given that in the
past year Western leaders have, for the first time since 2018, shown
that they are prepared to meet him in Saudi Arabia. The process of
bringing the Crown Prince back in from the diplomatic cold began with a visit
by Emmanuel Macron to Jeddah in December 2021 and gathered pace after
oil prices soared in the runup to and aftermath of the Russian invasion
of Ukraine in February. In March, Boris Johnson met
Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh in a bid to secure Saudi assistance in
stabilizing energy markets in a trip overshadowed by the largest mass execution
(of 81 people) in modern Saudi history three days earlier. Shadows have
also formed over Biden’s much-trumpeted July summit with Mohammed bin
Salman and other regional leaders in Jeddah owing to smaller-than-hoped (and subsequently reversed) increases in OPEC+ oil output and a spate of decades-long prison sentences imposed on Saudi women.
Mohammed bin Salman has re-emerged as a regional figure of standing; that much is clear in the way he was front-and-center at the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ‘reconciliation’ summit at Al-Ula in January 2021, which ended the rift with Qatar, exchanged
high-profile visits with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
April and June this year, and ventured into the European Union for the
first time post-Khashoggi when Greece and France rolled out the red
carpet for him in the summer. The fact that Johnson and Biden both felt
compelled to meet him in Saudi Arabia is indicative of the greater
leverage the Kingdom is perceived to wield, for the time being, at
least, but Saudi Arabia’s markedly lower level of representation at the
Queen’s funeral, vis-à-vis its GCC peers, illustrate the continuing
sensitivity in fully integrating Mohammed bin Salman back into the fold.