Turkey’s top diplomat slams Trump for turning ‘blind eye’ to Khashoggi

A
composite image of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Associated Press/Virginia Mayo; Nicolas Asfouri –
Pool/Getty

• Turkey’s top diplomat on Friday slammed President Donald
  Trump for turning a
  “blind eye” to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal
  Khashoggi.
• Trump on Thursday disputed the CIA’s reported conclusion
  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s
  killing.
• Trump has largely accepted the Saudi narrative that the
  prince knew nothing of the incident, and on Tuesday issued a
  forceful defense of Riyadh over Khashoggi’s killing. 

Turkey’s top diplomat on Friday slammed President Donald Trump
for turning a
“blind eye” to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi as the president continues to tout US-Saudi relations
amid accusations he’s placed arms sales and oil prices above
upholding human rights. 

Trump on Thursday disputed
the CIA’s reported conclusion Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing, suggesting the agency simply
has “feelings” on what happened to the journalist. 

“They have not concluded. Nobody’s concluded. I don’t know
if anybody’s going to be able to conclude that the Crown Prince
did it,” Trump said. “They said he might have done it. That’s a
big difference.”

The president also claimed Prince Mohammed “hates” what happened
to Khashoggi more than he does, adding that the prince
“vehemently” denies involvement.

“I hate the crime, I hate the cover-up. I will tell you
this: The crown prince hates it more than I do, and they have
vehemently denied it,”
Trump said.

Read more:
Turkey says the CIA has a ‘smoking gun’ tape nailing the Saudi
crown prince in the Khashoggi case

Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on
October 2. Saudi Arabia initially denied any involvement in
Khashoggi’s fate, but ultimately acknowledged he was killed by
agents of the government within the consulate. But the Saudi
leadership has maintained Prince Mohammed had nothing to do with
it.

Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman and President Donald
Trump.

Pool/Getty
Images

Trump has largely accepted the Saudi narrative and on Tuesday
issued a forceful defense of Riyadh over Khashoggi’s
killing. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reacted to much
of this on Friday, telling CNN, “In a way, Mr. Trump’s statement
means ‘Come what may, I will turn a blind eye on this.’ This
approach is wrong. Money is not everything. We should not
distance ourselves from human values.”

Cavusoglu added, “We found the US president’s
statement about [Prince Mohammed’s] involvement where he said
‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,’ interesting. What he based
this on, we don’t know.”

Read more: ‘Saudi
Arabia First, not America First’: Even top GOP allies of Trump
are railing against his defense of Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi’s
killing

Trump has so far refused to support any significant changes
to the US-Saudi partnership amid bipartisan calls in Congress

for the relationship to be reevaluated. The Treasury
Department recently
sanctioned 17 Saudi nationals allegedly connected to
Khashoggi’s killing, and the Trump administration seems to feel
this suffices in terms of a response.