Erdoğan to decide whether to meet bin Salman on G20 sidelines: Turkish FM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will decide whether or not to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G20, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Friday.

"There is no obstacle to meet with Saudi Crown Prince. If he asks for, we can meet but it is up to our president," Çavuşoğlu said.

A G20 meeting in Buenos Aires at the end of the month will be attended by leaders from the United States, Turkey and European countries.

Donald Trump's comments about Jamal Khashoggi's killing show the U.S. president will turn a blind eye to the issue no matter what investigators uncover, Çavuşoğlu said.

On Tuesday, Trump vowed to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder Khashoggi last month.

Criticising Trump's stance for putting commercial deals with Riyadh ahead of justice, Çavuşoğlu said human life should take precedence.

"This statement that Trump made also means: 'No matter what happens, I will turn a blind eye.' This is not a correct approach. Not everything is money," Çavuşoğlu said.

He also said the United States had not informed Turkey of an audio recording regarding Khashoggi's killing, a day after a Turkish newspaper said that the CIA had signalled to Turkey it had a recording in which the crown prince ordered to "silence Khashoggi".

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the order for Khashoggi's killing came from the highest level of the Saudi government but probably not King Salman, putting the spotlight instead on Salman's heir and de facto ruler Prince Mohammed.

Trump’s remarks echoed his controversial statement Tuesday saying of the conclusion bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, “maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, went missing after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Saudi Arabia is facing its worst political crisis in decades over the killing of Khashoggi at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul early last month, which has damaged the kingdom's standing and strained its ties with the West.

The Turkish foreign minister said the Manbij roadmap agreed between the U.S. and Turkey must be completed by the end of the year, adding that the implementation of the roadmap east of the Euphrates would remove the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the cities there.

On Nov. 1, Turkish and U.S. troops began joint patrols in Manbij, northeast of the Aleppo Governorate in Syria, as part of an agreement that focuses on the withdrawal of YPG/PKK terrorists from the city to stabilize the region.

The YPG is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Turkey on Friday criticised the European Union's foreign policy chief for her comments on the rule of law in Turkey..

Çavuşoğlu criticised the comments from Federica Mogherini as "out of line" after she said she hoped that former head of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş would be released soon.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled this week that Turkey should swiftly process Demirtas' case, saying his pre-trial detention had gone on longer than could be justified.

Çavuşoğlu described the ECHR ruling as motivated by politics, not the law, and said the case would be determined by Turkey's courts.

Turkey says the HDP has links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Demirtaş faces several other terrorism-related charges and a total of 142 years in prison if convicted.