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A demonstrator holding a photo of journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington on Wednesday. Photo: Washington Post

Donald Trump vows ‘severe punishment’ if Saudi Arabia killed Jamal Khashoggi

Turkey says Saudia Arabia must cooperate on Khashoggi and allow allow access to consulate in Istanbul

Saudi Arabia

US President Donald Trump vowed “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if the United States determines that Saudi agents killed The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, calling the journalist’s suspected murder “really terrible and disgusting”.

In excerpts of a new interview released on Saturday morning, Trump said that the incident is being investigated and that the Saudis deny any involvement, despite the mounting evidence that the Saudi regime was implicated in Khashoggi’s disappearance last week.

“Well, nobody knows yet, but we’ll probably be able to find out,” Trump said in the interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS’s 60 Minutes, which will air in full on Sunday night. “It’s being investigated, it’s being looked at very, very strongly. And we would be very upset and angry if that were the case. As of this moment, they deny it, and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes.”

US President Donald Trump listening to a question about Khashoggi after landing at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport on Friday. Photo: AP

Trump added, “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.”

Turkish authorities say a team of Saudis killed Khashoggi, and US intelligence intercepts show Saudi officials discussing an operation to lure Khashoggi – a Saudi citizen who had been living in the United States – back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and detain him.

Saudi Arabia must cooperate with the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance and let Turkish officials enter its Istanbul consulate, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Saturday.

Cavusoglu spoke to reporters during a visit to London.

“We have not yet seen cooperation on this subject and we want to see it,” Cavusoglu said in the comments, which were broadcast on Turkish television.

The Saudi government issued a statement on Saturday morning condemning and denouncing “the false accusations circulated in media reports on the Saudi government and other people in the purported relation to the disappearance” of Khashoggi.

The statement said that Saudi’s interior minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, “stressed that what has been circulating in terms of supposed orders to kill Jamal are outright lies and baseless allegations against the Kingdom’s government, which is committed to its principles, rules and traditions and is in compliance with international laws and conventions.”

The minister went on to praise a joint investigation with Turkey and said the kingdom wants to “clarify the whole truth” about Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Trump told Stahl that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, spoke by phone with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who denied any involvement.

“They deny it,” Trump said. “They deny it every way you can imagine. In the not too distant future, I think we’ll know an answer.”

Stahl asked Trump about his options to retaliate against the Saudis, including possibly imposing economic sanctions against the oil-rich desert kingdom, as a bipartisan group of senators has proposed.

Trump calledKhashoggi’s suspected murder “really terrible and disgusting”. Photo: AP

“Well, it depends on what the sanction is,” Trump replied. “I’ll give you an example. They are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it, and we got all of it, every bit of it.”

Asked if he would cancel the arms sales, Trump hesitated.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to do,” he said. “Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”

Trump said on Saturday “we would be punishing ourselves” by canceling the arms sales

Trump added to Stahl, “There’s a lot at stake. And, maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There’s something – you’ll be surprised to hear me say that, there’s something really terrible and disgusting about that if that was the case so we’re going to have to see.”

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