WASHINGTON _ U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo held an hourlong meeting with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Argentina amid growing congressional pressure to punish the kingdom further over its killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
"It was a great meeting _ very productive," Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said Friday as he left the Park Hyatt Hotel in Buenos Aires. "We discussed challenges in the region and the bilateral relationship and ways of moving it forward."
Al-Jubeir declined to say whether the pair discussed Khashoggi, the Saudi insider-turned-critic who was killed in early October after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for paperwork related to his planned wedding. The State Department also declined immediate comment on the meeting, Pompeo's first known encounter with the foreign minister since he visited Saudi Arabia in October.
The meeting wasn't on Pompeo's public schedule and appeared to come together at the last minute. President Donald Trump shook hands briefly earlier in the day with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but didn't have a formal meeting. Several world leaders at the G20 have declined to meet the crown prince, who was seen giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a high-five when they met on Friday.
The killing of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who wrote for The Washington Post, has emerged as the most serious threat to American-Saudi ties since at least the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. U.S. senators have demanded the White House be more forthcoming about intelligence gathered on Khashoggi's killing, and demanded to know whether the crown prince knew about in advance or ordered it.
According to several reports, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded with high confidence that Prince Mohammed ordered the killing. American officials, including Trump, have publicly questioned whether the crown prince's role will ever truly be known.
Earlier in the week, Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told senators that the strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, and the fight against Houthi rebels in Yemen, were too important to risk a broader rupture in ties with the kingdom. But many senators emerged from the hearing angrier than they went in, and are weighing the possibility of restricting support for the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis.
