US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the Saudis had not tricked him into killing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but "they may have deceived themselves." Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo also called on Saudi Arabia to declare the truth as soon as possible.
"They did not fool me, no, I hope things will work out and we have a lot of facts, we have a lot of things to study, they did not fool me, maybe they fooled themselves, we'll wait and see how things develop," Trump said.
This came after Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News that there were many unanswered questions, specifically how Khashoggi's murder took place at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, describing what he said was "a violation of the norms of international law."
He added that his country will not rely on others, "but we will collect their stories and build our own conclusion," and called on Saudi officials to declare the facts in full, stressing that the time is not in their favor.
Two weeks ago, Pompeo met with King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and his Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss Khashoggi's death. The United States then announced that the Crown Prince had agreed that a thorough investigation was needed.
In the latest developments, the prosecutor in Istanbul announced that the Saudi journalist was strangled, his body was cut off and disposed of, according to a prepared plan, in the first official statement by the Turkish prosecution since the investigations began.