Coveney rejects call for Saudi ambassador to be expelled

The Government has rejected a call for Saudi diplomats to be expelled from Ireland in the wake of the disappearance of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Thursday afternoon, Tánaiste Simon Coveney met Saudi ambassador Nail bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir at Iveagh House at the ambassador's request following the presumed murder of the Washington Post columnist.

But Mr Coveney dismissed a call by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett to expel the ambassador and other Saudi diplomats in Ireland.

Mr Boyd Barrett asked: “Why do we expel Russian diplomats after Salisbury and we are not expelling the Saudi ambassador and Saudi diplomats, after what is being done in Yemen and with Jamal Khashoggi?”

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But the Minister for Foreign Affairs said that “as usual you want to be the first out to call for dramatic actions.

“We were well informed on Salisbury before we made decisions and we’ve proven to be right since.”

He said they should wait to establish what happened with as much certainty as possible.

The UN this week warned that half of Yemen’s 28 million people face famine due to the Saudi-led war on their country.

Independents4Change TD Mick Wallace asked the Minister if he had raised the plight of the people of Yemen at the European Council meeting of foreign ministers this week.

Mr Wallace said: “I’m amused by the fact that the journalist is getting such coverage and the ordinary people of Yemen are being starved to death.”

He said that bombing in Yemen had to stop.

Mr Coveney said that “calling for the stopping of bombing is one thing. Actually making it happen is another”. He said the way that Ireland could be effective was to work through EU channels and the EU had a special envoy.

He said: “I raised it today with the Saudi ambassador in my office along with raising the issues of Jamal Khashoggi.”

They did not have the full facts yet and he told Mr Boyd Barrett: “You have the privilege in Opposition of being able to stand up and say whatever you want and make accusations and assumptions.

“I am foreign minister and I need to make sure that I make decisions on the basis of fact and informed content.”

The Dún Laoghaire TD described the Saudi authorities as a “murderous, brutal, rogue regime that is the enemy of democracy and is willing to use the most savage methods including bombing Yemen into a famine situation which will affect the entire population”.

He said that “a journalist who wished to speak out and called for a free press and the right of people in the Middle East to criticise regimes like this is brutally murdered by people who have been clearly identified as associates of Crown Prince [Mohammed] bin Salman.”