16 October 2018•Update: 16 October 2018
RIYADH
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday met with Saudi King Salman in capital Riyadh for talks on missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The talks tackled “historic relations between the two countries and the current situation in the region and the joint efforts done towards them,” the official SPA news agency reported.
The meeting was attended by senior Saudi officials, including Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Interior Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Saud bin Nayef, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Khalid bin Salman and U.S. Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale.
No further details were given regarding to the meeting.
The top U.S. diplomat also met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi media reported, without giving details about the content of the talks.
Pompeo, who arrived in Riyadh earlier in the day, will visit Turkey on Wednesday to meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Pompeo was being dispatched to meet the Saudi king to discuss the disappearance of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for the Washington Post newspaper.
Khashoggi has long been feared killed at the consulate after he entered on Oct. 2 and was never seen exiting.
Trump raised the possibility that "rogue killers" could have been responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance after speaking over the telephone with the Saudi king for 20 minutes on Monday.
Trump said Salman "firmly denies" any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance.
Earlier on Monday, Turkish and Saudi officials arrived at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul after the start of a joint probe into the missing journalist.
Saudi authorities have yet to give a clear explanation of what happened to Khashoggi, while several countries -- particularly Turkey, the U.S., and the U.K. -- are pressing for the mystery to be cleared up as soon as possible.
Reporting by Viola Fahmy:Writing by Mahmoud Barakat
