Earlier, US President Donald Trump said the CIA did not have any definitive answer on whether the Saudi Crown Prince had been aware of the prepared killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
U.S. President Donald Trump praised Saudi Arabia for helping to lower oil prices on Wednesday as pressure intensified to impose tougher sanctions on the Middle East ally following the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
President Donald Trump on Saturday called a CIA assessment blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “very premature” and said he will receive a complete report on the case on Tuesday.
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. More than two weeks later, Riyadh admitted that the Washington Post contributor had been killed in an altercation inside the consulate.
Earlier in the day, the Hurriyet newspaper reported that Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, Saud Al Mojeb, refused to inform the Turkish counterparts of the whereabouts of the body of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged Saudi Arabia on Friday to disclose who ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, as well as the location of his body, heightening international pressure on the kingdom to come clean on the case.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince bore ultimate responsibility for the operation that led to Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, and Turkish police were allowed to extend their probe at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia’s explanation of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a “good first step but not enough”, the U.S. Treasury secretary said on Sunday, adding it was premature to discuss sanctions against Riyadh over the incident.
Earlier, the US State Department denied that Mike Pompeo had heard audio or read a transcript related to the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Monday ordered an internal probe into the unexplained disappearance of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a joint Turkish-Saudi team was set to search the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was last seen on Oct. 2.
President Donald Trump vowed in a "60 Minutes" interview that the United States would get to the bottom of what happened to a missing Saudi journalist and that there would be "severe punishment" if he were found to have been killed.
A delegation from Saudi Arabia has arrived in Turkey as part of a joint investigation into the disappearance of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, three Turkish sources said on Friday.
