Pompeo Asks Trump to Give Saudis More Time

Also, treasury chief pulls out of high-profile economic summit in Saudi Arabia
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 18, 2018 12:17 PM CDT
Pompeo Asks Trump to Give Saudis More Time
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin won't be attending a Saudi investor summit.   (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)

Mike Pompeo continues to urge patience with the Jamal Khashoggi case: The US secretary of state says he has advised the White House to give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to complete its investigation into the journalist's disappearance. At that point, "we can make decisions about how or if the United States should respond to the incident," Pompeo told reporters Thursday. "There a lot of stories out there," and "we just are going to allow the process to move forward, allow the facts to unfold." But after meeting with Pompeo and President Trump to discuss Pompeo's visit to Saudi Arabia and Turkey earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Thursday he is pulling out of a high-profile investor conference he had planned to attend in Saudi Arabia next week. No other government officials will attend in his place, CNN reports.

"Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia," Mnuchin tweeted. The decision came after several of his European counterparts pulled out of the summit and multiple business leaders urged him to withdraw. Meanwhile, investigators in Turkey, where Khashoggi was reportedly gruesomely killed after entering the Saudi consulate to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage, have expanded their search area, the Washington Post reports. They are now planning to search at least two rural areas outside Istanbul, and have begun reviewing surveillance footage showing the entrances to the city's Belgrad Forest. (The Washington Post has reluctantly run what appears to be Khashoggi's final column.)

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