Turkey claims Saudi not cooperating as Trump threatens ‘punishment’

ISTANBUL — Turkey on Saturday accused Saudi Arabia of failing to cooperate with a probe into the disappearance of a journalist inside its Istanbul consulate, as US President Donald Trump threatened Riyadh with “severe punishment” if it turns out he was killed.

Comments by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu represented a hardening of Ankara’s tone over the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has not been seen since he stepped inside the consulate on Oct 2.

Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate and lurid claims have been leaked to media that he was tortured and even dismembered.

There were also reports in local media on Saturday that Turkish officials have an audio recording of the alleged killing from the Apple Watch Khashoggi wore when he walked into the consulate.

Riyadh insists Khashoggi, whose writings have been critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left the building safely but has yet to offer visual evidence.

The outcry surrounding his disappearance threatens to not just harm brittle Turkey-Saudi relations but also alarm the kingdom’s supporters in the West and tarnish the reform drive spearheaded by the crown prince.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes, according to an extract of an interview that was released on Saturday.

“As of this moment, they (Saudi Arabia) deny it and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes,” Trump said in the interview, which was conducted on Thursday.

But Trump again voiced his reluctance to halt military sales to Saudi Arabia, despite some US lawmakers calling for the move.

“I actually think we’d be punishing ourselves if we did that,” Trump said on Saturday.

“There are other things we can do that are very, very powerful, very strong and we’ll do them,” he added, without saying what those measures might be.

Ankara had said that a search of the consulate had been agreed but this has yet to materialize amid reports the two sides are at odds over the conditions of entry into what is Saudi sovereign territory.

“We still have not seen cooperation in order to ensure a smooth investigation and bring everything to light. We want to see this,” Cavusoglu said.

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Minister Prince Abdel Aziz bin Saud bin Nayef slammed claims that the kingdom ordered Khashoggi to be killed inside the consulate as “baseless allegations and lies”.