SINGAPORE—White House national security adviser John Bolton said an audio recording that Turkish officials say links Saudi Arabian operatives to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi didn’t appear to implicate the Saudi crown prince.
The recording’s contents are pivotal to the case of the missing journalist, an outspoken critic of the Saudi government who Turkish officials say was tricked into entering the Saudi embassy in Istanbul last month and murdered, his body cut into pieces.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Ankara had shared the recording with the U.S., Germany, France and the U.K., as well as Saudi Arabia.
Turkish officials say the recording has voices of Saudi operatives involved in the killing. The New York Times reported Monday that members of the alleged kill team were heard instructing a superior over the phone to “tell your boss,” which is believed to be a reference to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler.
Mr. Bolton said he hadn’t personally heard the audio recording provided by Turkey but that U.S. officials believe it doesn’t appear to connect the crown prince to the murder. “That’s not the conclusion that I think the people who heard it have come to,” he said at a media briefing in Singapore on Tuesday.
“We categorically deny the reporting referencing the crown prince in this matter or that he had any knowledge whatsoever of it,” a Saudi official said Tuesday. “Despite our multiple requests, the Turkish authorities have not provided us with the recordings, however, they allowed our intelligence services to hear recordings and at no moment was there any reference to the mentioned phrase in those recordings.”
Mr. Erdogan has stopped short of accusing any particular Saudi official but has said he believed the order to kill Mr. Khashoggi came from the “highest levels” of the Saudi government. Saudi officials have said the crown prince had no prior knowledge of the operation.
Turkish authorities have steadily leaked evidence in the case, heaping international pressure on Saudi Arabia, which says it is investigating the killing. Saudi officials, who initially said Mr. Khashoggi had left the embassy alive, now say he was murdered. Two close aides to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been fired and Riyadh has detained 18 people.
Mr. Bolton said the U.S. trusts that Saudi Arabia will investigate the killing. “We expect that they will continue the investigation and that’s very important to us and it’s very important to others in the region, too,” he said. “The president has made it very clear that he expects that we’re going to get the truth from the Saudis.”
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The case of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing has inflamed tensions in the Middle East and piled pressure on Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. Some lawmakers in Washington have called on President Donald Trump to curb weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and rethink bilateral ties.
Mr. Trump, who has expressed concern over the killing, says he wouldn’t favor a halt in arms sales. “The president has also said that this is an incredibly important relationship that he wants to sustain and that he doesn’t see that affecting the arms sales,” Mr. Bolton said.
Write to Jake Maxwell Watts at jake.watts@wsj.com
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