Iran Press- America/ Pompeo had a short discussion with King Salman before a longer meeting with the King's son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler. US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Pompeo "thanked the King for his commitment to supporting a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation" of the Khashoggi case and expressed "concern" about the case to the foreign minister.
Related news:
Investigation begins at Saudi consulate in Istanbul over Khashoggi disappearance
There was no public mention of any new Saudi explanation of Khashoggi's disappearance. CNN's sources say Saudi Arabia will contend that the Washington Post columnist died when an interrogation went awry.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish officials, who searched the consulate for nine hours on Monday, are looking into "toxic" and "painted over material" as part of their investigation. "My hope is that we can reach conclusions that will give us a reasonable opinion as soon as possible, because the investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over," Erdogan told reporters.
Related news:
Erdogan on Saudi journalist vanishing: "Upsetting this event happened in Turkey"
Saudi Arabia has been under intense international pressure to explain Khashoggi's apparent death after he visited the consulate on October 2 to obtain papers that would have allowed him to marry his Turkish fiancée.
Related news:
International rights groups condemn Saudi journalist murder
The affair has created a diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the West and led to international firms pulling out of a high-profile summit in Riyadh. The CEOs of three top banks -- Standard Chartered, HSBC and Credit Suisse -- announced their withdrawal from the conference Tuesday.
Khashoggi's family called for an independent, international commission to investigate the case.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman, meets with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Riyadh.
Turkish investigators will carry out a search of the Saudi Consul General's residence in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to a Turkish diplomatic source. CCTV footage, which has served as a focal point in the investigations, showed vehicles moving from the consulate building to the nearby Consul General's residence on October 2.
Officials, including a forensics team, conducted an investigation of the consulate that lasted well into the evening on Monday. Earlier in the day, CNN reporters saw a cleaning crew enter the building.
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Riyadh to lift immunity -- bestowed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations -- on its diplomatic premises and officials over the case of the disappeared journalist.
Related news:
UN secretary general, Guterres "very concerned" about Saudi journalist's fate
"Under international law, both a forced disappearance and an extra-judicial killing are very serious crimes, and immunity should not be used to impede investigations into what happened and who is responsible," Bachelet said in a statement released Tuesday.
"Two weeks is a very long time for the probable scene of a crime not to have been subjected to a full forensic investigation."
America helped the Saudis kill thousands of Yemeni civilians: US senator
Anonymous Turkish Official: Missing Saudi journalist killed on order of Riyadh
US senators urge Trump to slap sanctions on Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi
