Cardin may track Menendez on Saudi pact, Turkey F-16s as panel chair

WASHINGTON ― Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has stepped down as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee following his indictment over an Egypt-linked bribe scandal, but the panel’s new leader could still hinder Saudi attempts to strike a defense pact with the U.S. and Turkey’s bid to procure F-16 fighter jets.

After his staff distributed a picture and flyer of Saudi political prisoner Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan to reporters at a press conference on Thursday, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., stressed that he’ll make human rights concerns a key factor in approving arms sales to other countries, a privilege he now enjoys as committee chairman.

“It’s interesting, we have certain relationships right now in regards to Saudi Arabia,” said Cardin. “I will be mentioning this person [Al-Sadhan] during these discussions. It gets personal, but we won’t see policy changes in these countries.”

As chairman, Cardin will also have considerable influence in whether to advance any security treaty with Saudi Arabia requiring Senate ratification. He will also need to make a quick decision on whether to hold $235 million in Egypt military aid following the Menendez indictment by the end of the week.

The Biden administration had been in close contact with Menendez on both its negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, though Cardin is still waiting to receive those briefings in the weeks ahead after assuming the chairmanship on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia has asked the U.S. for a mutual defense pact and a civilian nuclear agreement as conditions to normalize ties with Israel. Cardin said he’s “very excited” about a Saudi-Israel normalization deal, calling it “a game changer in the region” but cautioned he would demand human rights accountability and security cooperation safeguards as part of any U.S. commitments to Riyadh.

Cardin highlighted Saudi Arabia’s 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, noting “There’s still not been fully accountability with regards to those responsible.”

“These issues need to be talked about and we have to have it included as we talk about a security agreement in the United States and Saudi Arabia,” he said. “And there’s got to be guardrails because any security agreement the United States commits to help defend another country to make sure that it’s always in our national security interest to get engaged.”

But he added that a successful security agreement, with safeguards, could “open up more opportunities for arms sales with the Saudis.”

“If we don’t have an agreement, then there’s a great concern as to the use of American military on the Saudis that we’ve seen in the previous campaigns, and I know there’s a great deal of interest among my colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” he told Defense News.

TOPSHOTS Yemenis stand at the site of a Saudi air strike against Huthi rebels near Sanaa Airport on March 26, 2015, which killed at least 13 civilians. Saudi warplanes bombed Huthi rebels in Yemen, launching a military intervention by a 10-nation coalition to prevent the fall of embattled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED HUWAIS

Before backtracking and entering defense pact negotiations with the Saudis, President Joe Biden announced shortly after taking office that he would ban offensive arms sales to Riyadh – including an $8 billion deal for precision-guided missiles agreed to in the Trump administration – because of the Khashoggi murder and U.S.-backed bombing campaign in Yemen that killed close to 9,000 civilians.

Last week, the State Department approved a $500 million arms sale in repairs and spare parts for U.S. tanks and armored vehicles owned by the Saudis . This includes equipment that Saudi border guards used to kill hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, as documented in an August Human Rights Watch report .

Menendez would have had to greenlight this sale, despite announcing a hold on Saudi arms sales last year “beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests” amid Democratic outrage over Riyadh’s agreement to increase oil output with Russia .

Cardin also said that he talked with Turkish representatives at the NATO ambassadors meeting on Wednesday.

“I reminded them to stay on track to get the accession of Sweden into NATO,” said Cardin. “They claim that’ll be done first part of next month. If that is true, then we should have the NATO issue resolved, but there are other issues in addition to just NATO accession that needs to be part of our discussions going forward.”

He said he had not made a decision on whether he would allow the F-16 sale to proceed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan explicitly linked the two issues this month, stating that Ankara would ratify Sweden’s accession if the U.S. moves forward on the F-16 sale. The Turkish parliament could take up Sweden’s accession bid when it returns from a months-long recess in October.

Menendez’s former position as Foreign Relations chairman proved to be Turkey’s chief obstacle in inking the roughly $20 billion sale for 40 Block 70 F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits. He had repeatedly said Sweden’s NATO accession would not be enough for him to approve the sale, at times pointing to a range of other concerns like border tensions with Greece and Ankara’s jailing of journalists and political opponents.

The Justice Department’s indictment against Menendez alleges that he ghost wrote a letter for an Egyptian official lobbying his Senate colleagues not to hold $300 million of Egypt’s annual $1.3 billion in military aid in exchange for bribes in cash and gold bars.

Cardin is also deliberating whether to block $235 million of Egypt military aid that the Biden administration approved via a national security waiver this month. He would need to do this by the end of the month.

“The allegations against Senator Menendez are horrific, and they also involve allegations concerning his role as chairman of the committee,” said Cardin. “So, that is extremely challenging to all of us here.”

However, he stressed that the indictment did not implicate any Foreign Relations Committee staffers.

Cardin last took Menendez’s place as lead Democrat on the committee during the New Jersey senator’s first federal indictment in 2015. However, that indictment did not implicate Menendez’s work on the committee.

While Menendez was required to step down as chairman per Senate rules, he currently remains on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

华盛顿——新泽西州参议员鲍勃·梅嫩德斯因卷入与埃及有关的贿赂丑闻而被起诉，随后辞去了外交关系委员会主席的职务。但该委员会的新领导人仍可能阻碍沙特阿拉伯与美国达成防务协议的努力，以及土耳其采购F-16战斗机的尝试。

周四，在马里兰州民主党参议员本·卡丁的幕僚向记者分发了沙特政治犯阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·萨丹的照片和传单后，卡丁强调，他将把人权问题作为批准向其他国家出售武器的关键因素，这是他作为委员会主席现在享有的特权。

卡丁说：“这很有意思，我们目前与沙特阿拉伯之间存在一些关系。我会在这些讨论中提到这个人（萨丹）。这会涉及到个人恩怨，但我们不会看到这些国家的政策发生改变。”

作为主席，卡丁在是否推进任何需要参议院批准的与沙特阿拉伯的安全条约方面也将拥有相当大的影响力。此外，在梅嫩德斯被起诉后，他还需在本周末之前迅速决定是否冻结对埃及的2.35亿美元军事援助。

拜登政府一直与梅嫩德斯就其与沙特阿拉伯和土耳其的谈判保持密切联系，尽管卡丁在周三就任主席后，仍需等待未来几周才能收到这些简报。

沙特阿拉伯要求美国以共同防御条约和民用核能协议作为与以色列关系正常化的条件。卡丁表示，他对沙特与以色列达成关系正常化协议“非常兴奋”，称其为“该地区的变革性事件”，但他同时警告说，他会要求美国在对利雅得做出的任何承诺中都包含人权问责和安全合作保障措施。

卡丁着重指出沙特阿拉伯在王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼的命令下，于 2018 年谋杀了《华盛顿邮报》记者贾迈勒·卡舒吉，并指出“至今仍未对相关责任人追究全部责任”。

他说：“这些问题需要讨论，我们必须在讨论美沙安全协议时将其纳入其中。而且必须设立保障措施，因为美国承诺帮助保卫他国的任何安全协议都必须确保参与其中始终符合我们的国家安全利益。”

但他补充说，一项成功的、有保障措施的安全协议可以“为与沙特阿拉伯的武器销售开辟更多机会”。

“如果我们没有达成协议，那么人们非常担心美国会在沙特问题上动用武力，就像我们在之前的军事行动中看到的那样。我知道参议院外交关系委员会的同事们对此非常关注，”他告诉《防务新闻》。

2015年3月26日，也门民众站在萨那机场附近沙特空袭胡塞武装的地点，此次空袭造成至少13名平民死亡。沙特战机轰炸了也门境内的胡塞武装，由此引发了由10个国家组成的联军对也门的军事干预，旨在阻止处境艰难的总统阿卜杜拉布·曼苏尔·哈迪下台。法新社/穆罕默德·胡瓦伊斯摄

在改变立场并与沙特阿拉伯进行防务协议谈判之前，乔·拜登总统上任后不久宣布，他将禁止向利雅得出售进攻性武器——包括特朗普政府时期达成的价值 80 亿美元的精确制导导弹交易——原因是卡舒吉遇害以及美国支持的也门轰炸行动导致近 9000 名平民丧生。

上周，美国国务院批准了一项价值5亿美元的军售，用于维修和提供沙特阿拉伯拥有的美国坦克和装甲车的零部件。这其中包括沙特边防部队曾用来杀害数百名试图从也门越境进入沙特的埃塞俄比亚移民和寻求庇护者的装备，人权观察组织8月份的一份报告对此进行了记录。

尽管去年因利雅得与俄罗斯达成增产协议而引发民主党人的强烈不满，梅嫩德斯宣布暂停向沙特阿拉伯出售武器，“除非是为了保卫美国人员和利益所绝对必要的”，但他仍然不得不批准这笔军售。

卡丁还表示，他周三在北约大使会议上与土耳其代表进行了交谈。

卡丁说：“我提醒他们要按计划推进瑞典加入北约。他们声称下个月初就能完成。如果真是这样，那么北约问题就应该解决了，但除了加入北约之外，还有其他一些问题需要纳入我们未来的讨论。”

他说，他还没有决定是否允许F-16战斗机的出售继续进行。

土耳其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安本月明确将这两个问题联系起来，表示如果美国推进F-16战斗机的出售，安卡拉将批准瑞典加入欧盟。土耳其议会可能会在10月结束长达数月的休会期后审议瑞典的入盟申请。

梅嫩德斯曾担任欧盟外交关系委员会主席，这成为土耳其签署价值约200亿美元的40架Block 70 F-16战斗机及现代化改装套件军售协议的主要障碍。他曾多次表示，瑞典加入北约不足以让他批准这笔军售，并多次提及其他一系列担忧，例如与希腊的边境紧张局势以及安卡拉监禁记者和政治反对派等。

美国司法部对梅嫩德斯的起诉书称，他曾为一名埃及官员代笔写信，游说参议院同僚不要扣留埃及每年13亿美元军事援助中的3亿美元，以换取现金和金条的贿赂。

卡丁还在考虑是否阻止拜登政府本月通过国家安全豁免批准的2.35亿美元埃及军事援助。他需要在本月底前做出决定。

卡丁说：“针对梅嫩德斯参议员的指控令人震惊，其中还涉及他作为委员会主席的角色。因此，这对我们所有人来说都是极大的挑战。”

但他强调，起诉书中并未牵涉到任何外交关系委员会工作人员。

卡丁上一次接替梅嫩德斯担任委员会首席民主党议员是在2015年，当时这位新泽西州参议员首次受到联邦起诉。然而，那次起诉并没有牵涉到梅嫩德斯在委员会的工作。

虽然根据参议院规定，梅嫩德斯必须辞去主席职务，但他目前仍是外交关系委员会的成员。

布莱恩特·哈里斯是《防务新闻》的国会记者。自2014年以来，他一直在华盛顿报道美国外交政策、国家安全、国际事务和政治。他还曾为《外交政策》、《Al-Monitor》、《半岛电视台英语频道》和IPS新闻撰稿。