RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing hideous and struck a conciliatory tone with Turkey, in his most forceful bid to move beyond the crisis and mend strained relationships with the U.S. and Ankara.
Prince Mohammed, in his first public remarks about Mr. Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, pledged Wednesday to cooperate with Turkish authorities, as his kingdom struggles with a global backlash over the killing.
The comments and a call between the 33-year-old prince and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey aimed to quell a growing diplomatic storm amid Turkish officials’ implication of Saudi leadership in the journalist’s slaying through media leaks.
“The incident that took place is very painful to all Saudis,” Prince Mohammed said at a conference in Riyadh. “It is a hideous incident and totally unjustifiable.”
A Western official based in the Persian Gulf said Prince Mohammed was delivering a message: “The Turks and us can find an agreement.”
“They had no choice,” the official said, referring to the Saudis. “They are in a corner and they have to be conciliatory. They can’t afford to fight back.”
The U.S. has taken diplomatic action including visa revocations against 21 Saudi officials it believes were involved in the journalist’s killing. More penalties could follow, including financial sanctions that apply to human-rights violators, a possibility raised by U.S. lawmakers.
The prince said he wouldn’t let the incident “drive a wedge” between Turkey—one of the region’s most powerful military forces—and Saudi Arabia. “This wedge won’t take place,” he said, sitting on a panel at the Future Investment Initiative, a Saudi business conference dubbed “Davos in the Desert.” Many Western executives boycotted the event over Mr. Khashoggi’s death.
Prince Mohammed also met Mr. Khashoggi’s son Salah on Tuesday to express condolences.
After Mr. Khashoggi left the kingdom last year, the Saudi government banned his son from leaving the country. It wasn’t known whether the government has lifted the travel ban on the son in the wake of his father’s death.
The crown prince said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia would cooperate with Turkish authorities to complete the investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice. “We will prove to the world that both governments are cooperating to punish any criminal and any wrongdoer and that justice will ultimately take its course,” he said.
In their phone call, Prince Mohammed and Mr. Erdogan discussed necessary steps the two countries would jointly take to address the Mr. Khashoggi’s case, according to a Saudi government statement and Turkish state media.
Prince Mohammed’s comments came after Mr. Erdogan on Tuesday contradicted Saudi explanations that Mr. Khashoggi was killed accidentally in a brawl at the consulate, leveling his strongest accusations at Saudi authorities.
Adding to the pressure on Prince Mohammed, President Trump said on Tuesday he didn’t rule out the royal’s possible involvement.
“He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
The Trump administration has pressed for answers in Mr. Khashoggi’s death, while also defending the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
One U.S. official said Prince Mohammed in his Wednesday appearance seemed to be trying to steer between an acknowledgment of the international condemnation and a signal of confidence about his place as the presumed successor to his father.
While Saudi royal family members who served in the U.S. recognize how serious the issue is, those close to the prince in Saudi Arabia are “more certain this will pass,” this official said.
The State Department didn’t react to Prince Mohammed’s public appearance. Meanwhile, Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel, who traveled to Turkey this week as part of an administration investigation, was expected to return to Washington by Thursday.
The Khashoggi crisis has become the latest flashpoint between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which are competing for influence in the Middle East. Tensions have grown after Turkey last year backed Qatar after Saudi Arabia and its closest regional allies severed diplomatic ties and launched an economic embargo on the tiny emirate.
They are also at odds over Turkey’s sympathetic view of the Muslim Brotherhood, the region’s most powerful Islamist movement, which Saudi Arabia regards as a terrorist organization.
In a sign that Saudi Arabia’s hard-line posture toward Qatar may be softening, Prince Mohammed on Wednesday praised the country’s economy, a comment Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Information said was intended to deliver “a powerful message on regional unity.”
There is no indication the Saudi monarch is prepared to push his son aside, in defiance of a Turkish pressure campaign that has leaked evidence to maximize damage on the kingdom’s standing. Mr. Erdogan demanded on Tuesday that high-ranking officials also be held accountable.
The Saudi government has repeatedly maintained Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the operation and King Salman tasked his son with overhauling Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, an indication he wouldn’t face direct repercussions. So far, Saudi authorities detained 18 men in connection with the death and dismissed two senior officials close to the crown prince.
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Since Prince Mohammed was catapulted to a position of almost unrivaled authority with his father’s ascension to the throne in 2015, he has been behind some of the kingdom’s biggest shifts at home and abroad.
He vowed to remake Saudi Arabia’s economy by reducing its reliance on oil revenue and pushed social changes including an end to the ban on women driving. He also oversaw some high-risk foreign-policy steps, including a war in Yemen and a blockade on neighboring Qatar, and apparent efforts to force the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
On Wednesday, the prince took the stage next to Mr. Hariri, in a show of confidence.
In Saudi Arabia last year, Mr. Hariri stepped down from his post under pressure from the Saudi government, a longtime patron of the Hariri family. He later rescinded his resignation after France and other Western countries intervened.
The incident sparked accusations that the Saudi government had effectively kidnapped Mr. Hariri to force him to resign.
“Prime Minister Saad is going to be here for two days, so please, no rumors that he is kidnapped,” Prince Mohammed joked at the end of the panel discussion.
—David Gauthier-Villars
in Istanbul, Summer Said in Dubai and Nancy A. Youssef in Washington
contributed to this article.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com
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