Iran Press/ America: Donald Trump made the remarks after being briefed on the investigation by his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on his return from a trip to Riyadh and Ankara, according to The Guardian.
In another sign the Trump administration was beginning to distance itself from the Saudi monarchy over Jamal Khashoggi’s suspected murder, the US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced he would not attend this week's government-sponsored investment conference in the Saudi capital, joining a growing exodus of top western businessmen and politicians.
Donald Trump also ended his administration’s refusal to discuss Khashoggi’s fate. Asked if he thought the Saudi journalist was dead, the US president told reporters, “it certainly looks that way to me. It’s very sad. It certainly looks that way.”
As to the US response if Saudi Arabia’s rulers were found to have been responsible for what appears to have been a grisly murder in the country’s Istanbul consulate, Trump said: “Well, it’ll have to be very severe. I mean, it’s bad, bad stuff. But we’ll see what happens.”
Meanwhile, French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France had suspended political visits to Saudi Arabia in coordination with Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, pending “clarification” on what happened to Khashoggi. He said France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, had cancelled his planned attendance of the Riyadh investment forum.
The UK’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, also pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative on Thursday.
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Speaking at the White House after briefing Trump on his trip to Riyadh and Ankara, Mike Pompeo said, “I told President Trump this morning that we ought to give them a few more days to complete [the inquiry] so that we would have complete understanding of the facts surrounding that, at which point we can make decisions about how, or if, the United States should respond to the incidents surrounding Mr Khashoggi."
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