A local effort to ceremonially name part of a Foggy Bottom road in front of the Saudi embassy to honor slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi may have to wait, WJLA reported Thursday.

Staff for D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told WJLA that the Council won’t sidestep the D.C. Code, which dictates that a person must be dead for at least two years before a street is named for them. Khashoggi, a former Virginia resident, was assassinated in Istanbul last month at the orders of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

The proposal to rename the street – unanimously supported by the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission Wednesday – would have called a portion of New Hampshire Avenue NW from F Street to Juarez Circle as “Jamal Khashoggi Way.”

Proponents of the renaming have said the change would reaffirm the importance of freedom of the press in the United States.

Councilmember Jack Evans – who represents Ward 2, where Foggy Bottom is located – told ABC7 News after an ANC meeting earlier this week that he supported the name change, and there was “talk” of finding an exception to the D.C. Code, WJLA reported.

But if no exception is made, the road in front of the embassy cannot be renamed after Khashoggi until October 2020, according to WJLA.