Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the first leader to publicly say that his country’s intelligence officials had listened to an audio recording that Turkish officials say is evidence that the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by Saudi operatives.
Mr. Trudeau said during a news conference in Paris that Canadian officials have been working with their Turkish counterparts on the investigation into Mr. Khashoggi’s killing. He said he hadn’t personally listened to the recording. However, a Canadian government official told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Trudeau had been fully briefed on its contents.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t mention Canada on Saturday when he said that Turkey 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 operatives involved in the killing of Mr. Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
“They all know the conversations, they listened to them,” Mr. Erdogan said at Ankara’s airport before departing to join other leaders in Paris to commemorate the World War I centenary.
Turkey has steadily leaked evidence in the case, heaping international pressure on Saudi Arabia, which says it is investigating the killing. Riyadh has detained 18 people and fired two close aides of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the kingdom has said he had no direct knowledge of the operation.
The White House said Saturday it doesn’t comment on intelligence matters. A German official said there had been an “intelligence exchange” but declined to elaborate. The U.K. foreign office neither confirmed nor denied that the U.K. had received a recording.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday he didn’t have any evidence that could shed light on the killing of the Saudi journalist.
“If the Turkish President has information to give us, he must give it to us,” said Mr. Le Drian, speaking on national TV.
Asked if that meant Mr. Erdogan was lying, Mr. Le Drian said: “It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances.”
Turkish authorities said Mr. Le Drian’s comments were an unacceptable accusation against Mr. Erdogan and didn’t reflect facts.
“On October 24, a representative of the French intelligence has listened to the audio recording and detailed information including a transcript of said audio,” Fahrettin Altun, communications director of the Turkish presidency, told Agence France-Presse, according to Turkish officials. “If there is miscommunication between the French government’s various agencies, it is up to the French authorities, not Turkey, to take care of that problem.”
Mr. Trudeau said he had spoken by phone with Mr. Erdogan a couple of weeks ago and had brief exchanges while in Paris, where he thanked Mr. Erdogan for his strength in responding to Mr. Khashoggi’s killing. “We continue to be engaged with our allies on the investigation into accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and we are in discussions with our like-minded allies as to next steps towards Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Canada’s diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained since August, when Saudi Arabia downgraded ties between the two countries after Canada’s foreign ministry sent a tweet calling on the kingdom to immediately release human-rights activists who had been jailed. Saudi Arabia said it viewed the remarks, which were also translated into Arabic, as an unacceptable interference in its internal affairs. It expelled Canada’s ambassador to the kingdom and instructed thousands of Saudi students who were studying in Canada to leave the country.
The diplomatic spat hasn’t affected a $10 billion deal, agreed to in 2014, to ship hundreds of armored vehicles from a Canadian subsidiary of General Dynamics Corp. to Saudi Arabia.
Canada’s Liberal government has been under pressure to cancel the deal, which was approved by the previous Conservative government, in response to Mr. Khashoggi’s killing. Mr. Trudeau said last month that his government is reviewing the armored-vehicle contract but warned Canada could face billions of dollars in penalties if it cancels the deal. Canada isn’t approving any new arms exports to Saudi Arabia during the review, the government has said.
—David Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul contributed to this article.
Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com and Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com
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