"There was no reason to approve sales while it is still unclear about Khashoggi's death details," said Maas in an interview with German public television's Tagesthemen program.

The remarks come in an apparent reversal to last month's decision by Berlin to authorize the sale of artillery systems to Saudi Arabia.

"So long as investigations are underway, so long as we don't know what happened there, there is no reason to take positive decisions on arms exports to Saudi Arabia," Heiko said.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist, went missing on October 2. He was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he went to receive papers he needed to remarry. Later, Saudi authorities announced that a preliminary investigation had shown that Khashoggi was dead.

The authorities said 18 Saudi nationals had been detained in relation with the matter, and intelligence chief Ahmad Assiri and senior aide to the Saudi crown prince Saud al-Qahtani had been sacked over the killing.

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