ISTANBUL -- Turkey will "never allow a cover-up" of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, a senior official in Turkey's ruling party said Saturday, reflecting international skepticism over the Saudi account that the writer died during a "fistfight."
The comment was one of many negative reactions to Saudi Arabia's announcement early Saturday about the writer's violent death, indicating that the kingdom's efforts to defuse a scandal that has gripped the world were falling short.
President Donald Trump on Saturday, in answer to a question about whether he thought the Saudi explanation was credible, replied: "I do. I do."
Trump retreated from that stance late Saturday but still gave a strong vote of confidence to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, arguing the United States' relationship with the kingdom is key to his administration's policy objectives in the Middle East.
"Obviously there's been deception and there's been lies," Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post during which he was pressed on the many discrepancies in the accounts from the Saudis. "Their stories are all over the place."
He did not call for the ouster of Mohammed and instead praised his leadership, calling the crown prince "a strong person. He has very good control."
During the 20-minute interview, Trump repeatedly talked about the importance of the economic ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia and Mohammed's role in that relationship.
"He's seen as a person who can keep things under check," he said. "I mean that in a positive way."
The president said he does not prefer that another leader replace the 33-year-old crown prince. Trump said he has read about others and that Mohammed is "considered by far the strongest person" and one who "truly loves his country."
Trump declined to say how, or if, he wanted to sanction the country, saying it was too soon to know.
Despite widespread anger over the killing of the columnist for The Washington Post, it is unclear to what extent the top leadership of Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally and a powerful player in a volatile region, would be held accountable for what human-rights activists describe as an extrajudicial killing by Saudi agents.
The only way to find out what happened would be through an international investigation led by a U.N.-appointed panel, the editorial board of The Post said.
Saudi Arabia's "latest version asks us to believe that Mr. Khashoggi died after becoming engaged in a 'brawl' with officials who had been sent to meet him. His body, Saudi officials told several journalists, was handed over to a 'local collaborator' for disposal," The Post said, while also criticizing Trump as trying to help top Saudi leaders escape "meaningful accountability."
The Saudi statement, released by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, said: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Public Prosecution showed that the suspects had traveled to Istanbul to meet with the citizen Jamal Khashoggi as there were indications of the possibility of his returning back to the country."
"Discussions took place with the citizen Jamal Khashoggi during his presence in the consulate of the kingdom in Istanbul by the suspects [that] did not go as required and developed in a negative way, leading to a fistfight. The brawl led to his death and their attempt to conceal and hide what happened," the statement said.
Saudi Arabia said 18 Saudi suspects were in custody and that intelligence officials had been fired.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged "a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Khashoggi's death and full accountability for those responsible," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the U.S. will advocate for justice in the Khashoggi case that is "timely, transparent and in accordance with all due process."
Trump has called the Saudi announcement a "good first step" but said what happened to Khashoggi was "unacceptable."
Lawmakers in both U.S. political parties noted that the Saudi narrative was inconsistent with the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies and that the Saudis, including Mohammed, had depleted their credibility by maintaining for weeks that Khashoggi had left the consulate.
"This is an admission of guilt, but the Saudis still aren't coming clean with the truth," Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. "The Saudi's latest version of events still isn't credible, and the Trump administration must not be complicit in allowing them to sweep this under the rug."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the Saudi version of events changes "with each passing day, so we should not assume their latest story holds water."
TURKEY DUBIOUS
The Saudi explanation is at odds with the conclusions of Turkish investigators, who believe that Khashoggi was deliberately killed by a team of Saudi agents who were dispatched to Istanbul.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey signaled that he would reject the Saudi explanation.
"We will not allow things to remain covered," Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party, said in a report by the semiofficial Anadolu news agency. "We will use all the opportunities that we have to reveal what happened, and this is the intention of our president."
Turkish officials have said they have audio recordings and other evidence that could discredit the new Saudi account by showing that the team intended from the start to assassinate and dismember Khashoggi. Turkish investigators are still searching for Khashoggi's body. The Saudi statements Saturday did not address what happened to the body.
Erdogan's government has so far refused to publicly share that evidence, possibly to protect Turkish surveillance methods but also, analysts said, to preserve a measure of leverage over the Saudis and the Trump administration, which has tried to protect its Saudi allies.
The overnight statement that the writer died in the consulate also came more than two weeks after Khashoggi, 59, entered the building for paperwork required to marry his Turkish fiancee and never emerged. Saudi Arabia initially denied any knowledge of his disappearance.
The kingdom has described assertions in Turkish media leaks, based on purported audio recordings that Khashoggi was tortured, killed and dismembered inside the consulate, as "baseless." Turkish politicians pushed back Saturday.
"It's not possible for the Saudi administration to wiggle itself out of this crime if it's confirmed," said Numan Kurtulmus, deputy head of Turkey's Justice and Development Party. He also said Turkey would share its evidence of Khashoggi's killing with the world and that a "conclusive result" of the investigation is close.
Another Turkish ruling party official, Leyla Sahin Usta, also criticized Saudi Arabia, saying the kingdom should have given its explanation "before the situation reached this point." She said it would have been "more valuable" if Saudi officials had earlier admitted that Khashoggi was killed in its diplomatic post.
Standing outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the head of a media group said the "authority that gave the orders" in the killing of Khashoggi should be punished.
Turan Kislakci, president of the Turkish Arab Media Association, said Khashoggi was "slaughtered by bloody murderers," and his group wants "true justice" for its slain colleague.
THE ABOUT-FACE
Saudi Arabia's about-face admission that Khashoggi was killed inside its consulate sent shock waves through a country where many had believed -- and defended -- initial official claims that the authorities had nothing to do with it.
"A very sad day for this nation, to see what the country had descended into," said one Saudi man, who spoke on condition of anonymity to criticize a government that tolerates virtually no dissent. "No country is perfect, but used to be proud that the country had a certain morality that aligned with Arabian values. We lost that forever unfortunately."
"I'm furious about what happened," said a Saudi man in his late 30s. "I hate when Saudi officials get carried away and torture people. We heard many stories during the 1980s and thought it was behind us. And now this."
While some accepted the latest news, several admitted that they did not believe the new narrative.
"Why couldn't they say where they dumped the body?" said a 24-year-old Saudi woman in Jeddah. "If he did die during a fistfight, finding that out shouldn't have taken this long."
In public, Saudi Twitter users praised the kingdom for its honest and fair investigation into Khashoggi's disappearance, and the hashtag "Kingdom of Justice" was trending in Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning.
"He who thinks that there's work without mistakes is delusional and ignorant," said pro-government Twitter user Ibrahim Altamimi, asserting that the case won't affect Mohammed's economic transformation plan.
In firing officials close to Mohammed, Saudi Arabia stopped short of implicating the heir-apparent of the world's largest oil exporter. King Salman, his father, appointed him to lead a committee that will restructure the kingdom's intelligence services after Khashoggi's slaying. No major decisions in Saudi Arabia are made outside of the ultraconservative kingdom's ruling Al Saud family.
Khashoggi, a prominent journalist and royal court insider for decades in Saudi Arabia, had written columns critical of Mohammed and the kingdom's direction while living in self-imposed exile in the U.S.
There's been no indication that Khashoggi had any immediate plans to return to the kingdom.
The Saudi statements, which expressed regret and promised accountability, did not identify the 18 Saudis being held by authorities and did not explain how so many people could have been involved in a fistfight.
The kingdom at the same time announced the firing of four top intelligence officials, including Maj. Gen. Ahmed bin Hassan Assiri, a one-time spokesman for the Saudi military's campaign in Yemen who later became a confidant of Mohammed.
Saud Qahtani, a powerful adviser to the prince, also was fired. Qahtani had led Saudi efforts to isolate Qatar amid a boycott of the country by the kingdom and three other Arab nations as part of a political dispute.
Information for this article was contributed by Christopher Torchia, Zeynep Bilginsoy and Sarah El Deeb of The Associated Press; by Josh Dawsey, Kareem Fahim and Zeynep Karatas of The Washington Post; by David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard of The New York Times; and by Vivian Nereim, Donna Abu-Nasr, Sarah Algethami and Salma El Wardany of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 10/21/2018