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Turkish officials on Sunday demanded a "compelling explanation" for the assassination of a dissident disappeared during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, causing escalating tensions between two of the largest powers in the Middle East.
The dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, is a veteran Saudi journalist and commentator who criticized the kingdom under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
After fleeing the kingdom for his voluntary exile last year, fearing to be arrested, Mr. Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday to retrieve a document allowing him to to remarry in Turkey.
On Saturday, Turkish officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the New York Times and other media outlets that investigators had concluded that Mr. Khashoggi had been killed by police officers. Saudi in the interior of the consulate.
"There is concrete information; this will not remain an unresolved case, "said Yasin Aktay, advisor to Turkish Prime Minister A.K.P. in an interview with the Turkish network CNN. "The consulate should give a clear explanation," he added, contrasting with a troubled and less assertive period of Turkey's recent past. "If they consider Turkey as it was in the 1990s, they are mistaken."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not mention Khashoggi or Saudi Arabia in a televised address on Sunday. But after talking to reporters, Erdogan said he was waiting for the prosecutor's investigation into what happened to Mr. Khashoggi.
"I still keep my good intentions," he said, adding: "As President of the Turkish Republic, I am pursuing it and, whatever the conclusions, we will inform the world", he declares.
The Crown Prince and other Saudi officials denied killing or kidnapping Mr. Khashoggi, saying that they did not know where he was. And by Sunday afternoon, no Turkish official had publicly accused Saudi Arabia of killing Mr. Khashoggi.
The discrepancy between the numerous anonymous allegations in the media and the public's reluctance to senior officials has sparked questions about whether Ankara would remain behind the leaks or whether it was trying to avoid what could be an extremely disruptive battle with Riyadh.
The two heavyweights in the region and their American allies, for example, have sought a delicate balance between their respective interests and their opposing positions. They have sometimes teamed up to oppose President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian conflict. fight against political Islam.
Turkey is at the heart of an economic crisis aggravated by a quarrel with Washington. Ankara may wish to avoid alienating a rich and influential trading partner like Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, for its part, issued a statement on Sunday morning in which it refutes reports of accusations by anonymous Turkish officials that Saudi agents allegedly killed Khashoggi. The consulate in Istanbul "has strongly denounced these unfounded allegations and has doubts about their provenance, Turkish officials informed of the investigation," the statement said.
He congratulated the "Turkish brother government" for having accepted a Saudi request to send a "security delegation of Saudi investigators" to help him investigate the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi. "The Kingdom is concerned for the safety and well-being of its citizens, wherever they are, and for the fact that the competent authorities of the Kingdom are diligently following up this case to discover the full facts", the statement continues.
But in an interview with state-owned TV channel TRT Haber, Aktay said, "It's an assault on Turkey's sovereignty. Turkey is waiting for a convincing explanation. "
Although Mr. Khashoggi planned to move to Istanbul, he was also a US resident and a Washington Post associate columnist. The US government has so far stated that it could not confirm the information about what had happened to it but was following the case.
At least one US legislator, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said on Twitter"If this is true – that the Saudis have drawn an American resident to their consulate and murdered him – this should represent a fundamental break in our relations with Saudi Arabia."
Azzam Tamimi, a friend who had lunch with Mr. Khashoggi in London the day before leaving for the Istanbul consulate, said Sunday in an interview that he had been reassured to have entered the Consulate by his warm reception during a previous surprise visit. .
Mr. Khashoggi had asked for a document needed to remarry in Turkey, said Tamimi. The consular staff "was surprised and answered: yes, we will do it for you, but the time has stopped, and they have decided that it will come. back on Tuesday. "
"He said that they were really good. there are just ordinary Saudis and ordinary Saudis are good people; they do not necessarily agree with the policies of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. "
Mr. Tamimi stated that Mr. Khashoggi had requested the necessary document to remarry in Turkey, his exile from Saudi Arabia having resulted in the divorce. The wedding was scheduled for Wednesday, a day after his disappearance at the consulate. His fiancee was waiting outside.
Mr. Khashoggi, in an unpublished draft published with a translator and obtained by the Times, had planned to plead in favor of the importance for the Arab world to develop a free press.
He asserted that the Arab Spring uprising had raised the hope of a new era of press freedom in the Middle East region, but that these aspirations had been shattered by a shift towards the Middle East. ; authoritarianism. Mr. Khashoggi wrote, referring to the examples of a journalist and jailed friend in Saudi Arabia and the censorship of a newspaper in Egypt: "Everyone is afraid."
As a partial solution, he proposed that the United States distribute more of their free information media in Arabic for the benefit of the region, perhaps on the model of Radio Free Europe during the Cold War.
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