U.S. President Donald Trump and France's Emmanuel Macron agreed on Saturday that the Saudi authorities needed to shed full light on the murder in Turkey last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a French presidency source said.
The two leaders also agreed that the Khashoggi affair should not be allowed to cause further destabilisation 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.
Saudi Arabia, which has faces global criticism and potential sanctions over the murder of Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul, leads a coalition battling Houthi insurgents in Yemen.
U.S. President Donald Trump and French leader Emmanuel Macron held a "very constructive" bilateral meeting on Saturday, an official in the French presidency said.
The two leaders met hours after Trump was scathing in a tweet of Macron's suggestion earlier this week that Europe needed a European army to bolster its defence capacities and reduce its dependence on the United States.
The Elysee Palace official said there had been a "misunderstanding" and that Trump, who had tweeted that Macron's comments were "very insulting", had told Macron in their meeting: "I think we are much closer than it seems."
