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Rouhani says Saudis wouldn't dare kill Khashoggi without US support

Largely tight-lipped on the Khashoggi killing so far, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani is now implicating the United States in Saudi Arabia's alleged assassination of a dissident journalist.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani listens during a news conference on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid - HP1EE9Q1DLYG4

"I don’t believe any country would dare commit such a crime without the support of the US," said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at an Oct. 24 cabinet meeting. Rouhani condemned the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as a "heinous crime" and advised the Turkish government to conduct a "precise and impartial" investigation into Saudi Arabia's role in it. He blamed the same US support for the Saudis' "savage bombardment" of the Yemeni people.

Turkey is playing a central role in the Khashoggi revelations that have rocked the world media — including Iranian outlets. Yet an Oct. 23 speech by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan disappointed several Iranian hard-line papers and even some moderates, as he did not spill the secrets they had anticipated. "US, Turkey, Saudi colluding to close the Khashoggi murder case," opined Jomhouri-e Islami, a moderate paper with an agenda aligned with that of the Rouhani administration. The article read, "Erdogan made no mention of [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman … and addressed the parliament only after the CIA chief landed in Turkey." The article alleged that bin Salman managed to buy Trump and Erdogan's silence. 

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