U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that it would be a "handful more weeks" before the United States had enough evidence to sanction those responsible for the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey's Istanbul.
Pompeo, in an interview with the Mark Reardon Show in St. Louis, said that the Trump administration is "continuing to understand the fact pattern" and "reviewing putting sanctions on the individuals that we have been able to identify to date that were engaged in that murder."
"It'll take us probably a handful more weeks before we have enough evidence to actually put those sanctions in place, but I think we'll be able to get there," he said. "The president said we will demand accountability for those who were involved in the commission of this heinous crime."
"We neither condone it, nor will we permit it to go unresponded to," he noted.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. diplomat said the United States has "deep and long-term strategic relationships" with Saudi Arabia and "we intend to make sure that those relationships remain intact."
He added that the United States has had "good cooperation" with Saudi Arabia and Turkey on this issue.
Earlier on Wednesday, Istanbul's chief public prosecutor's office said that Khashoggi was choked to death immediately after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in the city and his body was dismembered afterwards.
The prosecutor reiterated a call for the extradition of the suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia, saying "Turkish courts have jurisdiction over the case in line with Turkish law and principles of international law, provided that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey."
Khashoggi, journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has been missing since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
After releasing the results of its initial investigations, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 people were arrested over their alleged connections to the killing.
On Oct. 23, U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Saudi handling of the death of Khashoggi, calling it the "worst cover-up ever" and "a total fiasco."
Pompeo has also announced that the United States is revoking visas of 21 Saudi officials who were suspected of involvement in the case, in the first concrete step of punishment taken by the Trump administration after the disclosure of Khashoggi's death.
