ISTANBUL – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he is hopeful about the fate of missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi amid reports that the critic may have been killed shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Erdogan told reporters on Sunday that authorities were looking into all video surveillance footage of the mission’s entrances and monitoring all inbound and outbound flights since the writer disappeared on Tuesday.
“I am following the issue and we will inform the world whatever the outcome (of the official probe)”, Erdogan said.
“God willing, we will not be faced with a situation we do not want. I still am hopeful,” adding that “it is very, very upsetting for us that it happened in our country”.
On Tuesday, Khashoggi went into the consulate for a quick in and out to get a document certifying his divorce. His Turkish fiancé waited for 11 hours outside, unable to reach him as he surrendered his phone, a requirement in many diplomatic missions in the region. He told her that if he didn’t return, she should get in touch with an adviser to the Turkish president.
Now Turkish authorities say evidence shows he never left the building and suggest he was murdered there, with officials telling Reuters that “the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate.”
What’s more, Turkish police believe the hit on the troublesome dissident was carried out by a team of assassins “especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day,” an unnamed government source told an international news agency on Saturday.
The source also said the investigation found that the assassins may have entered the country hidden among a group of 15 Saudis, including officials, who touched down in Istanbul aboard two flights on Tuesday. They are also believed to have been present in the consulate at the time of Khashoggi’s visit.
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Vowing that Turkish police would solve the case, Yasin Aktay, the deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling AK Party, told CNN Turk on Sunday that Khashoggi’s request for the documents was to be obtained “in normal ways.”
The Saudis have been quick to dismiss any sort of foul play in regards to Khashoggi. During an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered Turkish authorities the opportunity to search the premises for the missing dissident, insisting that the Saudis “have nothing to hide.”
On Friday, bin Salman confirmed to the press that Khashoggi’s visit was indeed a quick in and out, saying his understanding was that the journalist left the consulate within an hour of first entering.
He added that the foreign ministry was also working to “see exactly what happened at that time.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he was personally following the case and that investigators are looking at all camera records and monitoring airports. He also said he is hopeful for a positive outcome to the matter.
So is Khashoggi’s fiancé. Hatice Cengiz took to Twitter to say that she “did not believe he has been killed” and was waiting for official confirmation.
Since fleeing his native Saudi Arabia in 2017 amid a clampdown on opposing views to the Saudi regime, Khashoggi later took up a position as a columnist at the Washington Post. His pieces regularly took aim at the Saudis’ ongoing conduct in the Yemen civil war and the policies of bin Salman.
