Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Team enters consulate, looks for missing Saudi
ISTANBUL — A team of investigators on Monday entered the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, the building where Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared nearly two weeks ago.
Members of the team arrived by unmarked police cars and said nothing to journalists waiting outside as they entered the building. Police then pushed back journalists from the front of the consulate, where they’ve been stationed for days, setting up a new cordon to keep them away.
Turkish officials called the investigation a joint inspection, though the makeup of the investigative team that entered the diplomatic compound was not immediately clear. International concern continues to grow over the writer’s Oct. 2 disappearance. American lawmakers have threatened tough punitive action against the Saudis, while Germany, France and Britain have jointly called for a “credible investigation” into Khashoggi’s disappearance.
A Saudi official said the king has ordered an investigation and could hold people accountable if evidence warrants it. The inquiry is separate from the joint investigation. Turkish officials have said they fear a Saudi hit team flew into and out of Turkey on Oct. 2 and killed and dismembered Khashoggi, who had written a Washington Post
columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom has called such allegations “baseless” but has not offered any evidence Khashoggi ever left the consulate.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he had dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia — and any other country necessary, including Turkey — to get to the bottom of the disappearance of Khashoggi, who had been living and working in self-exile in Virginia for the past year.
Trump suggested Monday that “rogue killers” could be
responsible. The comment came after a 20-minute phone call with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, and Trump said “it sounded like” neither the king nor his son, the crown prince, had any information about what had happened.
“The king firmly denied any knowledge of it,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to survey hurricane damage in Florida and Georgia.
Trump said he didn’t “want to get into [Salman’s] mind,” but told reporters: “It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. I mean, who knows? We’re going to try getting to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial.”
When asked later about a CNN report that the Saudi government is preparing to say Khashoggi died during an interrogation that went wrong, Trump said he was aware of the report but did not know if it was correct. The CNN report, attributed to two unnamed sources, says the intention was to abduct Khashoggi, and that the interrogation had not been authorized by the Saudi government.
Trump has said Saudi Arabia could face “severe punishment” if it was proved that it was involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia warned that if it “receives any action, it will respond with greater action.”
Saudi media followed that statement in television broadcasts and newspaper front pages Monday. The Arabic-language newspaper Okaz wrote a headline on Monday in English warning: “Don’t Test Our Patience.” It showed an image of a clenched fist.
The Saudi Gazette headline was “Enough Is Enough.”
‘WILL NOT BE BULLIED’
The Arab News focused on international companies
and business leaders backing out of an upcoming investment conference in Riyadh called the Future Investment Initiative.
The paper placed the headline “Saudi Arabia ‘will not be bullied’” above a frontpage editorial by Dubai-based real-estate tycoon Khalaf alHabtoor. He called on Persian Gulf Arab nations to boycott the companies refusing to attend the meeting later this month.
“Together we must prove we will not be bullied or else, mark my words, once they have finished kicking the kingdom, we will be next in line,” al-Habtoor said.
Business leaders who have said they will not attend include billionaire Richard Branson, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, and Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford.
News that the chief executive officer of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, would pull out of the conference drew angry responses across the region, in part because Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars in the company. The foreign minister of the neighboring island kingdom of Bahrain, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, tweeted Sunday night that there should be a boycott of the ride-hailing app both there and in Saudi Arabia.
It was unclear Monday what evidence, if any, would remain in the Saudi Consulate nearly two weeks after Khashoggi’s disappearance. A cleaning crew was seen entering the consulate hours before the investigative team arrived.
But the Turkish government has told the Trump administration that it possesses audio recordings of what occurred inside the consulate that day — evidence that U.S. officials said supports the conclusion that Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.
Trump praised Turkey, saying that with the country’s release of jailed pastor Andrew Brunson, relations were vastly improved.
“I have a very good feeling toward Turkey. Two days ago, I did not,” he said.
But Trump has built his Middle East policy around his close alliance with Saudi Arabia. It was the first foreign country he visited after taking office in 2017, breaking a decades-old tradition in which a president’s first foreign trip is either to Canada, Mexico or Great Britain.
Crown Prince Mohammed has twice visited the president in the Oval Office, most recently in March to kick off an investment tour of the U.S. that included stops on Wall Street and at Hollywood. The prince has developed a rapport with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey are also a concern. While Turkey and the kingdom differ on political issues, Saudi investments are a crucial lifeline for Ankara amid trouble with its national currency, the Turkish lira.
Late Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with the Saudi king about Khashoggi. The king said Turkey and Saudi Arabia enjoy close relations and “that no one will get to undermine the strength of this relationship,” according to a statement on the staterun Saudi Press Agency. Information for this article was contributed by Fay Abuelgasim, Suzan Fraser, Jon Gambrell, Yuri Kageyama, Jill Colvin and Matthew Pennington of The Associated Press; by Kareem Fahim, John Wagner and Souad Mekhennet of
The Washington Post; and by Jennifer Epstein, Vivian Nereim, Nick Wadhams and Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News.