Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Turks return to Saudi Consulate
Team sought to search well; Erdogan, prince speak on phone
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president spoke directly with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday as the Turkish investigation into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi returned to the Saudi Consulate grounds in an apparent hunt for the journalist’s remains.
Turkish officials did not immediately give details of the exchanges between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the crown prince with the two countries sharply at odds over Khashoggi’s slaying earlier this month.
Erdogan earlier Wednesday kept the pressure high, saying no one linked to the killing will “avoid justice” in an apparent message to Saudi leaders.
Investigators, meanwhile, sought to search a well on the Saudi Consulate grounds and studied surveillance images trying to piece together Saudi movements before Khashoggi’s slaying.
Prince Mohammed, speaking at a business forum in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, called the killing a “heinous crime” and acknowledged the international outcry. But he also reached out to Turkey and other countries with hopes that it would not leave a “wedge” in relations.
Turkey claims that a Saudi hit team plotted the killing of The Washington Post columnist after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Saudi Arabia has acknowledged Khashoggi’s death inside the consulate but says he was accidentally killed in a physical altercation with a team sent to negotiate his return to the kingdom. Khashoggi was living in exile in the United States and had planned to move to Istanbul and marry his Turkish fiancee.
Erdogan’s call with the crown prince was the first conversation between the two leaders since Khashoggi’s death. They discussed “joint efforts” to investigate the case, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported, and the official Saudi Press Agency carried a similar statement.
Earlier, however, Erdogan had vowed to seek justice against those who ordered the killing.
“We are determined not to allow a coverup of this murder and to make sure all those responsible — from those who ordered it to those who carried it out — will not be allowed to avoid justice,” he said in a speech in Ankara, the Turkish capital, news agencies reported.
Turkey’s state-run news agency also reported Wednesday that Saudi officials had prevented Turkish police from searching a water well in the consulate garden in Istanbul’s Levent district.
According to private broadcaster NTV, a fire brigade had been called to inspect for methane gas, which can be flammable, in the well before the police search. Saudi authorities did not allow the firefighters to enter, NTV reported, but the issue was later resolved. It was unclear whether the search went ahead.
Turkish crime-scene experts have previously gathered evidence inside the consulate and the residence of the consul general, but still seek greater access.
Also Wednesday, a surveillance-camera image made public in Turkey purported to show a Saudi consular vehicle at Istanbul’s Belgrad Forest the night before Khashoggi was killed, evidence Turkish authorities have said points to his premeditated murder.
In his first public comments since the killing Khashoggi, the crown prince said that his country is doing all it can to complete an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Addressing a gathering of more than 3,000 business leaders from around the world at the Future Investment Initiative, Saudi Arabia’s signature economic forum, Prince Mohammed acknowledged no responsibility in the case, and said the killing was “really painful to all Saudis” and to “every human being in the world.”
After the killing, many international business leaders and Western officials pulled out of the forum, including the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase, Uber, Siemens and Blackrock. Western media outlets withdrew as partners for the event.
The killing of the 59-yearold Khashoggi has created an international firestorm as suspicion mounts that the crown prince had a hand in the killing.
“Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage. He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him,” President Donald Trump was quoted telling the The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Khashoggi had written critically of the prince’s crackdown on dissent. Dozens of Saudi activists, writers, clerics and even women who were behind calls for the right to drive have been detained.
Speaking to parliament Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that the Saudi claim that Khashoggi died in a fight “does not amount to a credible explanation” and there remains an “urgent need” to establish what happened.
She said that Britain would be taking action against “all suspects” to prevent them from entering Britain, after the U.S. decision Tuesday to revoke the visas of the Saudi suspects.
“If these individuals currently have visas, those visas will be revoked today,” May said, adding that she planned to speak to King Salman later Wednesday.