Around 70 heads of state and government traveled to Paris to commemorate the centenary of the ceasefire during the First World War. US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the meeting to discuss the Jamal Khashoggi case. The two leaders discussed a joint response to the killing of the journalist at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, the White House said.
The conversation took place on the sidelines of the Heads of State and Government dinner on Saturday. According to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu, Trump and Erdogan sat side by side during the dinner. Whether both agreed on a common line in the case of Khashoggi, was initially unknown.
The Turkish government is using the affair to put pressure on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the killing of the Saudi Arabian journalist. The US government has withheld blaming of the royal house in Riyadh.
On Saturday, Erdogan announced that his secret service had shared tape recordings of the killing with Saudi Arabia, Britain, France, Germany and the US. According to the "Washington Post" BND boss Bruno Kahl should have listened to the audio record. "The recording was very convincing," the paper quoted a German intelligence official.