Turkey on Saturday accused Saudi Arabia of failing to cooperate with a
probe into the disappearance of a journalist inside its Istanbul
consulate, as US President Donald Trump threatened "severe punishment"
if it turns out he was killed.
Comments by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu represented a
hardening of Ankara's hitherto circumspect tone over the case of Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has not been seen since he stepped
inside the consulate on October 2.
Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi was killed inside the
consulate and lurid claims have been leaked to media that he was
tortured and even dismembered, while Trump has also struck a pessimistic
tone about the missing journalist's fate.
Saudi Arabia insists Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor whose
writings have been critical of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, left the building safely but has yet to offer visual evidence of
this.
The outcry surrounding his disappearance threatens to not just harm
brittle Turkey-Saudi relations but also alarm the kingdom's supporters
in the West and tarnish the reform drive spearheaded by the crown
prince.
"We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe
punishment," Trump told CBS's "60 Minutes," according to an extract of
an interview that was released on Saturday.
"As of this moment, they (Saudi) deny it and they deny it vehemently.
Could it be them? Yes," Trump said in the interview, which was conducted
on Thursday.
At the White House on Saturday, Trump said that "nobody knows what
happened" at the moment, and reiterated that he does not want potential
repercussions for Saudi Arabia to include limitations on arms sales.
"I actually think we'd be punishing ourselves if we did that. There are
other things we can do that are very, very powerful, very strong," Trump
said, without providing specifics.
Speaking about Khashoggi's fate, Trump said: "Our first hope was that he
was not killed, but maybe that's not looking too good ... from what
we're hearing."
- 'We want cooperation' -
Ankara had said that a search of the consulate had been agreed but this
has yet to materialise amid reports the two sides are at odds over the
conditions of entry into what is Saudi sovereign territory.
"We still have not seen cooperation in order to ensure a smooth
investigation and bring everything to light. We want to see this,"
Cavusoglu said.
He said Riyadh must let Turkish "prosecutors and experts enter the consulate" to carry out their investigation.
A Saudi delegation was in Turkey and due to have talks this weekend in
Ankara and take part in a working group on the disappearance, official
Turkish media said.
Khashoggi's fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside the consulate
when he went inside to sort out marriage paperwork, echoed the call,
urging Saudi on Twitter to "officially reveal what happened" to him.
She said Saturday marked the 60th birthday of Khashoggi and she had
previously planned "a surprise party" in Istanbul by the Bosphorus.
Interior Minister Prince Abdel Aziz bin Saud bin Nayef slammed claims
that the kingdom ordered Khashoggi to be killed inside the consulate as
"baseless allegations and lies."
Ankara has so far trodden carefully in the controversy, with the most
sensational allegations splashed in the pro-government press, while
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so far stopped short of directly
accusing Riyadh of wrongdoing.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia have an uneasy relationship, with disputes over
the ousting of the Islamist government in Egypt and the blockade imposed
on Ankara's ally Qatar.
- 'Recorded by Apple Watch' -
The latest claims reported by the pro-government Sabah daily said that
Khashoggi had been wearing an Apple Watch when he entered the consulate
which was synced with an iPhone left outside with his fiancee.
It said that the watch had recorded what happened inside the consulate
and this was uploaded to his cloud, although Saudis sought to partially
delete it.
"The moments of Khashoggi's questioning, torture and killing were recorded on the Apple watch," said Sabah.
Analysts say that Turkey is hoping to find support from its NATO ally
the United States in the case, although Ankara and Washington have been
in crisis over the detention for the last two years of a Protestant
pastor.
But the pastor, Andrew Brunson, was freed on Friday and allowed to fly
home by a Turkish court, in a move that could help normalise ties.
Meanwhile Prince Mohammed's big October conference -- the Future
Investment Initiative dubbed by media as the "Davos in the Desert" after
the annual conference in the Swiss resort -- has suffered a litany of
cancellations over the controversy.
Key business figures like the chief executive of ride hailing app Uber
-- into which the Saudi's own investment fund injected money -- are no
longer showing up, while media groups like the New York Times, Financial
Times and Bloomberg have pulled their sponsorship.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that he still planned
to attend, as did IMF chief Christine Lagarde although she said she was
"horrified" by the case.
A powerful Emirati businessman, Khalaf Al-Habtoor, has called for Gulf
countries and allies of Riyadh to boycott companies that have pulled out
of the conference.
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