Washington
\nUS President Donald Trump increased pressure on Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to provide information on what happened to missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and said he wanted to get the bottom of what he called \u201ca very serious situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a fresh clue, a pro-government Turkish daily on Wednesday published preliminary evidence from investigators it said identified a 15-member Saudi intelligence team involved in Khashoggi\u2019s unexplained disappearance on October 2.<\/p>\n
Pressure appeared to be building worldwide on close US ally Saudi Arabia on the whereabouts of Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi policies, who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents for his planned marriage.<\/p>\n
Khashoggi\u2019s Turkish fianc\u00e9e, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside, said he never re-appeared. Turkish sources said they believe Khashoggi was killed inside the building and removed, allegations that Riyadh dismisses as baseless.<\/p>\n
Asked in a telephone interview with Fox News Channel late on Wednesday whether Saudis were responsible for Khashoggi\u2019s disappearance or death, Trump said: \u201cI guess you would have to say so far it\u2019s looking a little bit like that and we\u2019re going to have to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he had raised Khashoggi\u2019s case with Saudi Arabia \u201cat the highest level\u201d and more than once in recent days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re demanding everything,\u201d Trump said when asked if he was demanding information from the Saudis. \u201cWe want to see what\u2019s going on. It\u2019s a very serious situation for us and for this White House … We want to get to the bottom of it.\u201d He said he and his wife, Melania, expect to invite Cengiz to the White House soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople saw him go in and didn\u2019t see him come out. We\u2019re going to take a very serious look at it. It\u2019s a terrible thing,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThis is a bad situation. We cannot let this happen, to reporters, to anybody. We can\u2019t let this happen.\u201d Increasing pressure on Trump to respond, a bipartisan group of US senators on Wednesday triggered a US investigation into Khashoggi\u2019s disappearance using a human rights law.<\/p>\n
They asked Trump to determine whether \u201ca foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognised human rights\u201d and report back in 120 days with a decision on the imposition of sanctions on whoever was responsible.<\/p>\n
Asked about suggestions that Washington should consider blocking further arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Trump told Fox that would hurt US jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly I think that would be a very very tough pill to swallow for our country. … Before I discuss this I\u2019d have to find out what happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said he has suspended his role on the board of Saudi Arabia\u2019s planned mega city NEOM until more is known about Khashoggi.<\/p>\n
After Trump spoke, the White House said national security adviser John Bolton and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law, had spoken to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the matter on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up with his own call to the crown prince, who had forged close ties to the administration, especially Kushner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn both calls they asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process. We will continue to monitor this situation and provide updates as available,\u201d White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Khashoggi\u2019s fianc\u00e9e Cengiz was surprised when an American friend told her of Trump\u2019s comment about inviting her to the White House, the friend told Reuters. \u201cI think she\u2019s in shock, now even more,\u201d her friend said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington US President Donald Trump increased pressure on Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to provide information on what happened to missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and said he wanted to get the bottom of what he called \u201ca very serious situation.\u201d In a fresh clue, a pro-government Turkish daily on Wednesday published preliminary evidence from investigators […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44189,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44187\/revisions\/44189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}