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U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis answers a question from the news media as U.S. President Donald Trump spoke during a gathering for a briefing from his senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 23, 2018. Image Credit: Reuters

Washington: The United States must balance its concerns about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record with the need to maintain a “strategic relationship” with the Saudis, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday.

In his first extended comments on last month’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that “there has to be accountability for anyone involved in the murder. Yes, I’m calling it murder.”

“We’re not going to apologise for our human rights stance,” he said.

“Nor are we going to apologise for working with Saudi Arabia when it’s necessary for the good of innocent people who are in trouble.”

It was in American interests to work with the Saudis to “stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen,” he said.

He also credited the Saudis with assisting in stepped-up US efforts to bring the Taliban and the Afghan government together for reconciliation talks.

Mattis said that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its coalition partner in Yemen, had largely ceased “offensive operations” over the past 72 hours around Hodeida, the key, militant-held Yemeni port city amid a renewed peace push there.

Reports from the ground in and around Hodeida indicated that the air strikes have stopped, although some ground skirmishes continued.

The apparent cease-fire between the US-backed coalition and Iranian-backed Al Houthi militants comes as both sides have agreed to attend UN-backed peace talks Mattis said would be held in Sweden in “very, very early December.”

President Donald Trump, in an extraordinary statement Tuesday, cited potential profit from US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s investments in this country as primary reasons for the United States to move past the Khashoggi controversy.

He discounted a CIA assessment, reported by The Washington Post last week, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s killing, saying “maybe he did and maybe he didn’t.”

Mattis did not mention Trump’s statement but said that he did not think that Mohammad’s involvement “has been fully established either by the CIA or the Saudi government.”

Trump said the United States “may never know all the facts surrounding the murder.”