Turkey hunts for journalist missing at Saudi consulate

TURKEY has summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to demand an explanation over the fate of a journalist who vanished after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post, who has been critical of the Saudi royal family, has not been seen since Tuesday, when he entered the consulate to file paperwork.

Both Turkey’s government and Mr Khashoggi’s family said they believed the writer was still inside the consulate building.

Saudi Arabia insisted that Khashoggi left the consulate, and claimed it was working with Turkish authorities “to uncover the circumstances of the disappearance”.

Mr Khashoggi left his fiancée waiting outside the consulate as he went for a meeting there on Tuesday, handing her both of his mobile phones.

The fiancée, who asked not to be named, said he never re-emerged from the building in Istanbul.

“We want to know his whereabouts. Where is Jamal?” she said. “We want him to come out of the consulate safe and sound.”

Yesterday morning the Turkish government summoned the Saudi ambassador in Ankara to ask him to account for the situation.

A spokesman for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, said: “This individual, who is a Saudi national, is still at the Istanbul consulate of Saudi Arabia.”

Karen Attiah, an editor at The Washington Post, said the newspaper was “extremely disturbed” by his disappearance.