With the killing of Jamal Khashoggi hanging over the start of the G20, how leaders interacted with the Saudi crown prince revealed their relative positions of power.
The big question ahead of the G20 summit in Argentina was how world leaders would greet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid the fallout over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. We now have the answer: He was embraced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, apparently admonished by French President Emmanuel Macron, and mostly ignored by President Trump.
U. S. intelligence agencies say the Saudi crown prince, known as MbS, ordered the hit last month on Khashoggi, a journalist and regime critic, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Meanwhile, Western intelligence agencies say Moscow used a nerve agent to try and assassinate a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain in March. They survived, but a British woman who accidentally came in contact with the nerve agent died.
Although diplomatic relations can’t be discerned by decoding body language, interactions—or their notable absence—between world leaders at large summits are rarely accidental. Through careful choreography, all of these leaders were trying to demonstrate their power to influence one another.
Read: The Saudi crown prince gets a pass on Khashoggi at the G20
News footage from Friday’s opening of summit showed Putin and MbS smil ing, seemingly jok ing, and shar ing a high five.
