Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Reuters 
 
 ISTANBUL — Turkey has given recordings on the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday. 
 
 "We gave the tapes... They have listened to all the conversations in them. They know," Erdogan said. 
 
 NBC News has not verified his claims. 
 
 Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was critical of the Saudi government and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. 
 
 Turkish sources have said previously that authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting the murder. 
 
 However, a State Department spokesperson previously denied that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heard an audio recording or saw a transcript of the recording after he held emergency meetings in Saudi Arabia and Turkey last month. A senior Turkish official similarly denied the reports. 
 
 "Turkey has not given a voice recording to Pompeo or any other American official," Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. 
 
 Speaking ahead of his departure for France to attend commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, Erdogan said Saudi Arabia knows the killer of Jamal Khashoggi is among a group of 15 people who arrived in Turkey one day ahead of the Oct. 2 killing. 
 
 "There's no need to distort this issue," he said. "Saudi Arabia's government can disclose this by making these 15 people talk." 
 
 Erdogan said he may meet with President Donald Trump, who is also in Paris for the ceremonies this weekend. 
 
 "When we go to Paris, we will try to secure an opportunity and we will realize a bilateral meeting," Erdogan said. 
 
 Trump himself previously cast doubt on a leaked recording, telling reporters he was “not sure yet that it exists,” but that if it does, the U.S. had asked Turkey to share it. 
 
 But following a meeting in Paris on Saturday between Trump and French leader Emmanuel Macron, a French presidency source said the pair agreed that the Saudi authorities needed to shed full light on Khashoggi's murder. 
 
 They also agreed that the matter should not be allowed to cause further destabilization in the Middle East and that it could create an opportunity to find a political resolution to the war in Yemen, according to the official. ||||| CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed President Trump on Thursday about her trip this week to Turkey, where she listened to audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia appeared to acknowledge that its agents had murdered the dissident Saudi journalist in a “premeditated” operation. 
 
 A statement issued by the public prosecutor in Riyadh, citing shared Turkish evidence of premeditation, marked the latest reversal in the Saudi version of events and put the focus directly on the question of who ordered Khashoggi’s death. 
 
 U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers have said that the killing, in a foreign country, of a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unlikely to have taken place without the knowledge of the kingdom’s most senior leaders. 
 
 Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Saudi authorities, who insisted for weeks that he had left the building after a meeting and that they had no information on his whereabouts, said Saturday that their investigators had determined he was accidentally killed there during a brawl with Saudi agents. The authorities said the agents were there to discuss his desire to return to the kingdom, but offered no indication of who had sent them. 
 
 The Saturday statement said that 18 unnamed Saudis had been arrested and that five senior officials had been fired. It also said that a high-level committee to restructure Saudi intelligence agencies — headed by Mohammed — had been formed and that a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation into Khashoggi’s death was underway. 
 
 Mohammed and his father, King Salman, have both repeatedly assured Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, that they had no knowledge of a plot to kill Khashoggi. 
 
 Trump initially described the Saudi explanation Saturday as credible. But in recent days he has expressed doubt, calling it “the worst coverup ever,” although he has not directly pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership. Instead, Pompeo announced that visas held by the arrested Saudis were being revoked, and the White House on Monday dispatched Haspel to Turkey. 
 
 On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said publicly for the first time that there was evidence the killing had been “planned” — presumably including the audio reportedly recorded inside the consulate by Turkish intelligence. 
 
 The recording is the central piece of evidence Turkey has used to assert that the killing was planned. After listening to it and talking with Turkish officials, Haspel returned to Washington. The White House declined to provide details of her Thursday briefing, saying only that she had informed the president on her “findings and discussions.” 
 
 [CIA director listens to audio of journalist’s alleged murder] 
 
 The briefing, which the State Department said Pompeo attended, coincided with the new statement by the Saudi prosecutor, which appeared designed at least in part to jump ahead of any conclusions the administration might draw from the new information. 
 
 The Saudi statement said that the preliminary results of the joint investigation with Turkey had yielded “information from the Turkish side . . . suggesting that suspects in the incident had committed their act with a premeditated intention.” A translation of the statement, published in Arabic, was provided by the Saudi Embassy in Washington. 
 
 “The public prosecution continues its investigations with the accused in light of the information it has received and the results of its investigations to clarify the facts and complete the course of justice,” the translated statement said. 
 
 It was not immediately clear how Haspel’s report and the announcement from Riyadh would affect the administration’s thinking amid bipartisan demands from Congress for severe punishment of Saudi Arabia — the nation at the center of Trump’s Middle East policy. Trump has publicly resisted calls to end weapons sales to the Saudis, the world’s largest purchaser of U.S. defense equipment, saying that it would cost American jobs. 
 
 But the succession of events this week has underscored the rapidly mounting pressures on Saudi Arabia to fully illuminate Khashoggi’s killing, amid increasing global skepticism. 
 
 U.S. and foreign officials and experts with knowledge of the kingdom have said that such an operation was virtually unthinkable without the knowledge and approval of the highest levels of the Saudi government, particularly the powerful and ambitious crown prince. But Salman’s appointment of Mohammed to head the committee revamping the intelligence apparatus, and the prince’s appearance this week to host global government and industry leaders at a Riyadh investment conference, has all but ended speculation that his position was threatened. 
 
 Appearing at the conference Wednesday, Mohammed called the journalist’s killing “a heinous crime.” 
 
 
 
 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during a session of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on Wednesday. (Saudi Royal Palace/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) 
 
 In another sign that the kingdom is seeking to contain the widespread fallout, Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of Jamal Khashoggi, has left Saudi Arabia, two people close to the family said Thursday. The son, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who was photographed receiving condolences from Salman and Mohammed on Tuesday, had previously been restricted from leaving. 
 
 Salah Khashoggi was headed to the United States to join his three siblings, who are already here, according to one of the people. 
 
 The photos and video footage of him meeting with the king and crown prince were released by the Saudi government in an apparent effort to showcase their sympathy. Instead, the images elicited scorn on social media, with critics accusing the leaders of exploiting a grieving son. 
 
 State Department deputy spokesman Robert J. Palladino told reporters that “we made it clear that we wanted him to be able to return [to the United States], and are pleased that he’s been able to do what he so desires.” Asked if the son had faced obstacles in leaving Saudi Arabia, Palladino said he was “not aware” of any. 
 
 Jamal Khashoggi, 59, was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post who was living in Virginia after leaving Saudi Arabia because of fear about his safety. He had been planning to settle in Istanbul and marry his Turkish fiancee when he was detained and killed in the Saudi Consulate. 
 
 Also Thursday, the European Union issued a fresh condemnation of Khashoggi’s killing and reiterated its skepticism that it could have been carried out without Mohammed’s knowledge. 
 
 The European Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution urging a European Union-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia in response. The resolution came several days after Germany became the first Western government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest arms importer. 
 
 French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May both spoke via telephone with Salman, according to a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry late Thursday, hours after the European Parliament’s resolution passed. 
 
 According to an Elysee Palace readout of the conversation, Macron pressed the Saudi king for more clarity on what happened to Khashoggi and told him France considers freedom of expression and freedom of the press an “essential priority.” 
 
 But Britain and France have both stopped short of suspending arms sales to the desert kingdom. 
 
 
 
 European Parliament members vote on a motion on the killing of Khashoggi in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday. (Jean-Francois Badias/AP) 
 
 Through a steady stream of leaks to Turkish and foreign media outlets, Turkish officials have mounted a compelling case that the Saudi agents planned all along to kill Khashoggi, dismember him and dispose of his remains. The Turks have identified a Saudi forensics specialist who is an expert in mobile autopsies and traveled to Istanbul the day Khashoggi was planning to visit the consulate. They also photographed Saudi diplomatic vehicles scouting wooded areas in the days before Khashoggi disappeared. 
 
 In addition, the leaks have featured surveillance pictures of a Saudi agent wearing Khashoggi’s clothes and a fake beard and leaving the consulate, in what appears to be an orchestrated bid to fool investigators into thinking the journalist had safely left the diplomatic mission, as the Saudis initially claimed. 
 
 Although the Turks have mounted an extensive search of the consulate and other areas in Istanbul, they have released no information indicating his remains have been found. 
 
 El-Ghobashy and Fahim reported from Istanbul. John Hudson and Josh Dawsey in Washington, James McAuley in Paris and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more 
 
 European Parliament passes resolution urging arms embargo on Saudi Arabia 
 
 Trump says Saudis engaged in ‘worst coverup ever’ as U.S. imposes penalties 
 
 Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world 
 
 Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news ||||| DUBAI/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said on Thursday the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate this month was premeditated, reversing previous official statements that the killing was unintended. 
 
 The death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has sparked global outrage and mushroomed into a crisis for the world’s top oil exporter and strategic ally of the West. 
 
 The Saudi disclosure came after CIA director Gina Haspel heard an audio recording of the killing during a fact-finding visit to Turkey this week. 
 
 The spy chief on Thursday briefed President Donald Trump on Turkey’s findings and her discussions, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participated in the meeting, the State Department said. 
 
 Saudi officials initially denied having anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance after he entered the consulate on Oct. 2, before changing the official account to say an internal investigation suggested he was accidentally killed in a botched operation to return him to the kingdom. 
 
 On Thursday, Saudi state TV quoted the Saudi public prosecutor as saying the killing was premeditated, and that prosecutors were interrogating suspects on the basis of information provided by a joint Saudi-Turkish task force. 
 
 “Information from the Turkish side affirms that the suspects in Khashoggi’s case premeditated their crime,” said the statement carried by state TV. 
 
 Turkey and Western allies of Riyadh have voiced deep scepticism about Saudi explanations of the killing. 
 
 Turkish officials suspect Saudi agents killed Khashoggi, 59, inside the consulate and cut up his body. Turkish sources say authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting the murder. 
 
 Related Coverage Kremlin: no reason to doubt Saudi statements on Khashoggi murder 
 
 Pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, citing the audio, has said his torturers cut off his fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded him. 
 
 The CIA’s Haspel heard an audio recording of Khashoggi’s death during a trip to Turkey this week, sources told Reuters. It was not clear what could be heard. Representatives for the CIA and Turkish intelligence declined to comment. 
 
 “We have shared with those who sought additional information some of the information and findings that the prosecutor has allowed us to share,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters, without giving details. 
 
 Among various versions of what happened to Khashoggi given by Riyadh, Saudi officials had said the columnist was either killed in a fight inside the consulate or died in a chokehold when he resisted being drugged and abducted. 
 
 A European security source who was briefed by people who listened to the audio said of the recording: 
 
 “There was an argument at the beginning, they insulted each other, it then developed. (Saudis said) ‘Let’s give a lesson to him’.” 
 
 Khashoggi did not appear to believe he was going to die, the source said. 
 
 INTELLIGENCE RESTRUCTURING 
 
 How Western allies deal with Riyadh will hinge on the extent to which they believe responsibility for Khashoggi’s death lies directly with the prince and the Saudi authorities. 
 
 A demonstrator holds a poster with a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal 
 
 Saudi Arabia has detained 18 people and dismissed five senior government officials as part of the investigation into Khashoggi’s murder. Some were members of a 15-man hit team, many of them Saudi intelligence operatives, who flew into Istanbul hours before Khashoggi’s death, Turkish security sources say. 
 
 Turkish police were investigating water samples from a well at the consulate on Thursday after initially being denied access, broadcaster CNN Turk said. 
 
 King Salman, who has delegated the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia to the crown prince, on Saturday ordered a restructuring of the general intelligence agency. 
 
 Saudi state news agency SPA said on Thursday that Prince Mohammed had presided over the first meeting of a committee to carry out that restructuring. 
 
 The prince promised on Wednesday the killers would be brought to justice, his first public comments on the matter. 
 
 Khashoggi’s eldest son, Salah, and his family arrived on Thursday in Washington on a flight from Saudi Arabia, according to two sources close to the family. One source said Salah Khashoggi holds dual U.S.-Saudi citizenship and had been under a travel ban. 
 
 This week he held a meeting at the al Yamama Palace in Riyadh in which he and other family members received condolences from King Salman and the crown prince. 
 
 A photograph of the meeting showed Salah staring coldly at the prince as the pair shook hands. 
 
 Dozens of people stood vigil outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Thursday to demand justice. Several carried cardboard images of his face and signs reading “Khashoggi’s friends”. One, his hands painted red, wore a mask depicting the face of Prince Mohammed. 
 
 Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called Khashoggi’s murder a “savage killing” and demanded Riyadh punish those responsible, no matter how highly placed. 
 
 Slideshow (8 Images) 
 
 The king assured Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Thursday that the Saudi government was determined to hold the guilty parties accountable and make sure “they receive their punishment,” according to the official Saudi press agency. 
 
 Saudi Arabia is the lynchpin of a U.S.-backed regional bloc against Iran but the crisis has strained Riyadh’s relations with the West. Dozens of Western officials, bankers and executives shunned a big investment conference in Riyadh this week. 
 
 But striking a defiant tone, the crown prince told international investors at the three-day gathering on Wednesday that the furor would not derail the kingdom’s reform drive. 
 
 “We will prove to the world that the two governments (Saudi and Turkish) are cooperating to punish any criminal, any culprit, and at the end justice will prevail,” he said to applause.
– Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says officials from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France, and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the AP reports. Erdogan's comments on Saturday were the first public confirmation of the existence of recordings of the Oct. 2 killing of the Washington Post columnist at the consulate where he'd gone to get papers to marry his fiancee. "We gave the tapes," Erdogan said Saturday before departing for Paris, where he'll attend events with other world leaders marking the armistice that ended World War I, per Al Jazeera. "They have listened to all the conversations in them. They know." NBC News notes that a State Department rep had previously denied that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had heard any such audio or seen any audio transcript when he visited Turkey last month. President Trump, meanwhile, has said that the US has asked for any audio "if it exists." Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia to rid itself of the "stain" by cooperating with Turkey over the investigation. Erdogan said a 15-member team that Turkey says was sent to kill Khashoggi know who's behind the killing, as well as the location of his remains. (Saudis are boycotting Amazon over coverage of Khashoggi's murder.)