Turkey eyes Saudi officials in case of missing journalist
ISTANBUL — Investigators are examining the movements of Saudi officials who flew to Istanbul and went to the Saudi Consulate there on the same day that a Saudi dissident journalist disappeared after going to the building, Turkish authorities said Tuesday.
Turkish officials have said that investigators believe the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was killed and dismembered at the consulate after going there last Tuesday to pick up a document. The Saudi government has denied those claims.
Turkish authorities also were looking into the possibility that Khashoggi had been abducted with the help of another country’s intelligence officers and that he could still be alive, the daily newspaper Sabah, which is close to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reported Tuesday.
Saudi officials have agreed to allow Turkish investigators to conduct a search at the consulate, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, but the ministry did not offer any information about the timing, nature or extent of such a search.
The Saudi officials who flew to Turkey on the day that Khashoggi disappeared left the country hours later. Details of their visit were reported at length in Sabah, in an article by two reporters known for their sources in the intelligence and security services.
Two government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the broad outlines of the Sabah report, but said they could not confirm all of its details.
The leaks to Turkish news media seemed aimed at maintaining diplomatic pressure on the Saudi government to explain Khashoggi’s disappearance. Erdogan called Monday evening for an explanation, in comments to reporters during a visit to Hungary.
The international community has added to that pressure this week. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he was “deeply troubled” by reports about what had happened to Khashoggi.
And Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office called for Saudi Arabia and Turkey to conduct a thorough investigation into the disappearance and to make the results public.
“This is of serious concern, the apparent enforced disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.