Erdogan says Saudis planned Khashoggi’s killing in Turkey
Turkish leader tells Riyadh he wants answers, suspects.
President Recep ISTANBUL —
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Tuesday raised the stakes in his dispute with Saudi Arabia over what he called the “premeditated murder” of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, demanding that Riyadh supply more answers and hand over the Saudi suspects.
After saying he would reveal “the naked truth” about Khashoggi’s death, Erdogan, making his first extended remarks on the case, sketched out the chronology of a broad operation.
The 15-member team of Saudi officials arrived in stages in Istanbul to carry out the killing, and included generals, senior intelligence officers and forensic officials, Erdogan said. The Saudis also conducted reconnaissance in rural areas outside the city where investigators have been searching for Khashoggi’s remains, the president said.
“It is clear that this savage murder did not happen instantly but was planned,” Erdogan said, challenging the official Saudi account.
But while Erdogan offered some new details and confirmed others, the speech mainly served to make clear that Erdogan had no intention of dropping a case that has created an international furor.
He pressed the Saudis for an honest accounting of a killing that he pointedly noted occurred inside his country, and he posed a series of tough questions, throwing down a challenge to the Saudi leadership.
“Why was a team of 15 Saudi men, all with qualifications related to the incident, gathering in Istanbul on the day of the murder? We are seeking answers to this question. On whose orders did those individuals go there?”
Saudi Arabia has said that 18 officials are under investigation in the killing, but Erdogan said that he would call King Salman of Saudi Arabia and ask that the case be adjudicated in Istanbul, not in Riyadh or elsewhere in Saudi Arabia.
The killing of Khashoggi, 59, inside the Saudi Consulate raised questions of international law and diplomatic conventions that concerned the entire world community, Erdogan said, clearly trying to broaden the pressure on the Saudi government.
“This murder might have been committed at a consulate building which may be considered Saudi Arabian land, but it rests within the borders of Turkey,” Erdogan said, adding that international agreements on the status of consular property “cannot allow the investigation of this murder to be concealed behind the armor of immunity.”
The Saudi government maintained at first that Khashoggi left the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul alive Oct. 2. Since admitting Friday that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, Saudi Arabia has claimed that his death was accidental and that the operation was not authorized by the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Erdogan’s much-anticipated address, to the weekly gathering of his party in the Parliament chamber in Ankara, came after more than two weeks of carefully orchestrated leaks to the news media by Turkey that implicated the highest levels of the Saudi government.
Erdogan promised Sunday that he would reveal the details of Turkey’s investigation in his speech Tuesday. Previously, he had said little in public about Khashoggi’s disappearance, but he had waged a behindthe-scenes battle through a campaign of government leaks to international and Turkish news outlets.