Saudi FM: We don't use economic policy for political purposes

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir rejected the charge that Saudi Arabia had "threatened" to withdraw investments from the U.S. if Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorist Act (JASTA). Minister Al-Jubeir made this statement yesterday during a media briefing in Geneva after a meeting on Syria with U.S. Secretary of State of John Kerry.

"I say you can warn. What has happened is that people are saying we threatened. We said that a law like this is going to cause investor confidence to shrink. And so not just for Saudi Arabia, but for everybody," said Minister Al-Jubeir.

"We don't use monetary policy and we don't use energy policy and we don't use economic policy for political purposes. When we invest, we invest as investors. When we sell oil, we sell oil as traders."

Minister Al-Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia's position on the proposed legislation was based on basic principles of relations between states, particularly the principle of sovereign immunity.

"In fact what they [Congress] are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle," Minister Al-Jubeir said.

"That's why the [Obama] administration is opposed to it, and that's why every country in the world is opposed to it."

SOURCE Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information Office