Missing Saudi journalist
TURKISH and Saudi authorities gave conflicting accounts on Wednesday about the whereabouts of Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi, who moved to Washington last year fearing retribution for his views and has not been seen nearly 30 hours after entering the Saudi consulate in İstanbul.
Mr Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancée as well as a close friend said he had disappeared after entering the diplomatic mission on Tuesday to secure documentation of his divorce so that he could remarry.
The fiancée, who asked not to be named, said she had waited outside the consulate from 1pm and called the police when he had not reappeared.
Turkish presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalin said Mr Khashoggi was still in the consulate and the government was monitoring the situation.
“Our relevant authorities are in contact and engaged in negotiations with their [Saudi] counterparts. I hope this issue will be resolved with ease,” he told reporters.
Saudi Arabia’s Consulate-General in İstanbul said in a statement that Mr Khashoggi had left the consulate building, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
It said the consulate was working with Turkish authorities “to uncover the circumstances” of his disappearance.
Mr Khashoggi’s fiancée, who returned to the consulate on Wednesday after waiting for 12 hours the day before, repudiated that claim.
“If this was true, where is he? Where is he? Did he go home, no, I went to the house and didn’t find him. Where is Jamal?” she said.
Turkey has had strained relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states since June 2017, when Ankara stood by Qatar in a regional row. Arab states cut trade and diplomatic ties with Qatar over alleged links to terrorism, which Doha denies.
Turkey has also worked with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival in the Middle East, to try to reduce fighting in northern Syria, and Iranian and Turkish military chiefs exchanged visits last year.
The US State Department said on Wednesday that it was monitoring and seeking information on Mr Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Mohamad Soltan, an Egyptian-American activist who sees Mr Khashoggi regularly in Washington, said that the journalist was in the United States on an Ovisa, a temporary residency visa awarded to foreigners “who possess extraordinary ability” in the sciences, arts, education, and other fields and are recognised internationally, and had applied for permanent residency status.
Mr Khashoggi, a familiar face on political talk shows on Arab satellite television networks for years, has lived in self-exile in Washington, DC, for more than a year after he said the authorities had instructed him to stop tweeting.
As a journalist, he interviewed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden several times in Afghanistan and the Sudan, and served twice as editor of Al Watan newspaper.
Over the past year, Mr Khashoggi has written regular columns in the Washington Post criticising Saudi Arabia’s policies towards Qatar and Canada, the war in Yemen, and a crackdown on dissent and the media and activists which has seen dozens of activists, intellectuals and clerics detained.