A Saudi prince related to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appeared to take aim at President Biden and the United States, warning leaders not to threaten Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Prince Saud al-Shaalan, who is married to one of the granddaughters of the late King Abduaziz al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s founder, said in a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, “Anybody that challenges the existence of this country and this kingdom. All of us, we are products of jihad, and martyrdom. That’s my message to anybody that thinks that it can threaten us.”
The video comes while unprecedented tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are active after the oil-rich kingdom led an OPEC+ decision last week to cut oil production despite America pushing the kingdom to increase exports.
Biden lashed out at Saudi Arabia following the decision, accusing the country of siding with Russia in its war with Ukraine and warning of “consequences” for the kingdom.
“There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done with Russia,” Biden said during an interview with CNN last week.
In response, Saudi Arabia released a long statement of its own denying the decision was made to help Russia.
“The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would first like to express its total rejection of these statements that are not based on facts, and which are based on portraying the OPEC+ decision out of its purely economic context,” the Saudi foreign ministry said. “This decision was taken unanimously by all member states of the OPEC+ group.
“The Kingdom affirms that the outcomes of the OPEC+ meetings are adopted through consensus among member states, and that they are not based on the unilateral decision by a single country,” the statement continued. “These outcomes are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility that does not serve the interests of consumers and producers, as has been always the case within OPEC +.”
The statement also said that, “The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would also like to clarify that based on its belief in the importance of dialogue and exchange of views with its allies and partners outside the OPEC + group regarding the situation in the oil markets, the Government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the US Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences.”
The back-and-forth tensions have caused concern that the longtime security alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia could be in the midst of fracturing, but a Saudi source claims that al-Shaalan’s rhetoric does not represent the views of the government and there is a good chance that they will take action against the prince for posting the video.