German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, October 17, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany should not approve arms sales to Saudi Arabia until investigations into the circumstances of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death have been completed, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Saturday.

In an interview with German public television’s Tagesthemen program, Maas said there was no reason to approve sales while it was still unclear what had happened to Khashoggi, in an apparent reversal of last month’s decision to authorize the sale of artillery systems to Riyadh.

“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,” he said.