U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave Saudi Arabia’s crown prince 72 hours to wrap up investigation into disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Axios reported on Thursday.
According to Axios, Pompeo told the prince he had 72 hours to finish the probe to shed light into Khashoggi’s disappearance and find out if murder allegations were true if he wanted to avoid tarnishing Saudi Arabia’s “place on the world stage.”
Pompeo met with Saudi King Salman and Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday seeking answers about the Khashoggi case. While both of them were smiling in front of the cameras, the meeting was in a much more serious tone as Pompeo insisted the case was not something Saudi Arabia would casually dismiss and that the truth behind the disappearance would come out eventually, the report said.
Shortly after the meeting in Riyadh, Pompeo arrived in Ankara and held talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu about Khashoggi as well other topics. Dissident journalist Khashoggi, has been missing since Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to gather documents for marriage. His fiancee and friends have said he did not leave the building. The Saudi journalist’s Turkish colleagues and several Turkish officials have voiced concerns that he was murdered in the consulate.
Saudi officials previously have denied any involvement in the incident, claiming the 58-year-old disappeared after he left the consulate but failed to provide any evidence.
Late Tuesday evening, citing an anonymous Turkish officials, several news outlets reported that Khashoggi was brutally murdered and his remains were dismembered.
Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül said on Thursday that the case is being “thoroughly” investigated and results would “come out soon,” after a joint Turkish-Saudi team of forensic experts concluded the search at Saudi consulate and Saudi consul’s residence in Istanbul.
Source: Daily Sabah