Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has accused Donald Trump of intending to brush aside the killing of Jamal Khashoggi “no matter what” after the US president showed he’s still reluctant to cast a stone at Riyadh.
“He will turn a blind eye no matter what,” Cavusoglu told CNN Turk in an interview published Friday.
The diplomat was apparently reacting to the US leadership’s repeated refusal to assume that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman might have ordered the murder of the WaPo columnist. Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, but never came back… and was later confirmed to have been killed and dismembered there.
While at one point castigating Saudi Arabia over the gruesome murder of the journalist, Trump opted for a broader perspective on Thursday. The US president alleged that “the world should be held accountable” for the killing. He also dismissed the CIA’s assessment of the Saudi prince’s potential involvement in the case. Trump stated that the said document did not “conclude” that fact, but merely had “feelings” for it.
Trump has been under fire for flip-flopping over the major US ally in the Middle East. Both Democrats and Republicans lashed out at the president’s statements, accusing him of defending the Saudi “regime.”
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