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Saudi FM meets Washington officials for second time in 3 days

November 19, 2016 at 1:20 pm

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir met with United States’ officials for the second time in three days in order to discuss issues of mutual cooperation with senior US senators, Egyptian news website Masralarabia.com reported.

According to the official Saudi news agency, the Al-Jubeir and his delegation met with Senator John McCain, Chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Orrin Hatch.

This is the second meeting for Al-Jubeir with Washington officials over three days, as he met with congressmen and other US officials on Tuesday to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries.

Congress nullified in September President Barack Obama’s veto against a controversial bill known as “JASTA”, or the Justice Against State-sponsors of Terrorism Act.

Although it has since been toned down, the JASTA legislation was designed to allow families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue countries who are deemed state-sponsors of terror and who are thought to have had a hand in the terrorist attacks.

The legislation was deemed as being anti-Saudi because of ongoing rumours that the White House under the Bush administration had censored a document that allegedly proved Saudi Arabia was connected to the masterminds of the attack.

Outgoing US President Barack Obama subsequently authorised the release of the document, only for it to show that there was no link between Riyadh and the Al-Qaeda Twin Towers bombers.

Saudi Arabia warned it may withdraw its US investments should JASTA be approved by Congress and become law, later citing the unclassified document as proof of its innocence.

The US Treasury said last month that Saudi investments in the United States declined to $93 billion in August from $96.5 billion in July. Compared to the same period in 2015, Saudi investments in the US was $112.8 billion.