Saudi Arabia's top diplomat says the global outcry over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi has become "hysterical" but claimed the kingdom is determined to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"This issue has become fairly hysterical," Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said at a high-level forum in Bahrain.
He added that he thinks people have assigned blame to Saudi Arabia with certainty before the investigation of the journalist’s murder is complete.
The top diplomat says the kingdom has made it "very clear that those responsible will be held responsible".
Mr Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi crown prince who worked as a Washington Post columnist, was killed by Saudi agents at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
Saudi Arabia admitted for the first time on Friday that the killing of journalist Mr Khashoggi was planned, contradicting the kingdom's previous claims.
Prosecutors cited Turkish evidence that the killing was "premeditated" just days after claims that rogue Saudi officials killed him by mistake in a brawl inside their Istanbul consulate.
Saudi authorities initially said they knew nothing about what happened to the journalist.
It comes amid reports Mr Khashoggi's son, Salah, and his family left Saudi Arabia for the US on Thursday after a travel ban on them was lifted.
At a conference in Riyadh on Wednesday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the killing was a "heinous crime that cannot be justified" and warned against any efforts to "manipulate" the crisis and drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
On Thursday, Prince Mohammed attended the first meeting of a committee aiming to restructure the kingdom's intelligence services after the killing of Mr Khashoggi.
Mr Khashoggi, who lived in self-imposed exile in the US for nearly a year before his death, had written critically of the crown prince's crackdown on dissent.
On Saturday, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said at an international conference in the Middle East that the killing "undermines regional stability" and the US plans to take further action in response to the killing.
Mr Mattis never mentioned Saudi Arabia directly in connection with the killing of Mr Khashoggi, but he noted that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revoked visas of Saudis implicated in the killing.
Turkish officials have said that a Saudi team of 15 men tortured, killed and dismembered the writer and in a premeditated act.
