Turkey increases pressure on Saudi Arabia over killing of Khashoggi

Chico Harlan, The Washington Post

Published

10:01 am PDT, Friday, October 26, 2018

ISTANBUL – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Intensified the pressure on Saudi Arabia in a speech Friday, demanding that the kingdom reveal the location of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and that Turkey has additional "information and documents" about the killing that it would eventually reveal.

Erdogan also repeated his call on the country if they made it to the country. Anadolu news agency reported that Turkish prosecutors have been asked to extradite these suspects.

"Hand them over to us," Erdogan said. "The event took place in Istanbul, we will judge them."

A senior Turkish official said that Turkey was requesting the extradition because it was sent to the country because it was "clear that the judicial system in Turkey is better served by the cause of justice in this case."

Erdogan's comments to the ruling party in Ankara marked Turkey's latest attempt to press the United States of America.

U.S. and foreign officials say such an operation – involving a team of Saudi agents – was unlikely to take place without the knowledge of the kingdom's leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In the aftermath of Khashoggi's killing inside the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2, Saudi Arabia has offered shifting explanations for what happened, at one point saying Khashoggi had walked out of the building unharmed and later said his death fistfight. But Thursday, the country made its first apparent acknowledgment that the operation was "premeditated." Erdogan on Friday did not mention that development, but now criticized Saudi accounts as "comical."

"These childish statements do not coincide with the seriousness of the state," Erdogan said.

Turkey has launched an expansive search for Khashoggi's remains, and their whereabouts are one of the major outstanding issues in the case. Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, Erdogan said, will arrive Sunday in Istanbul as part of the investigation.

"There has been a declaration that he has been killed, but where is the body?" Erdogan said. "You must show it."

For Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, the crime has provided grounds for pushing against Saudi Arabia, one of its regional rivals, and weakening the credibility of the crown prince. Muhammad this week called the killing a "heinous crime." Both Mohammed and his father, King Salman, have told President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, that they had no knowledge of a plot to kill Khashoggi.

Still, the Trump administration is facing a claim against the kingdom, even though an alliance with the Saudis has been a pillar of its Middle East to counter Iran. Trump has called Khashoggi's murder "one of the worst coverups in the history of coverups."

On Thursday, CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed Trump about her recent trip to Turkey, where she listened to purported audio of Khashoggi's killing.

In its statement Thursday, Riyadh said that it had been learned that the suspects in Khashoggi had "committed their act with a premeditated intention." The Saudi news release, attributed to its public prosecutor, was important because it relayed Turkey 's conclusion, but it did not make clear.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking during a radio interview Friday with Hugh Hewitt, said that "The Prosecutor's Office has made it clear that this is the first time we've been here."

"The President has made it very clear that we will be responsible accountable, but that America has important, long-term, strategic interest in our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and that we are going to do both of these things at the same time Accountable accountable, "Pompeo said.

Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist who was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain marriage documents. He was a royal court insider who had become critical of the Saudi government, and was living in exile in Virginia, in part because of the nation's diminished speech freedoms and its crackdown on dissent.

Khashoggi and Cengiz had an apartment for themselves in Istanbul. In an interview with Turkish broadcaster Haberturk that aired Friday, Cengiz said Khashoggi was treated well during a trip to the consulate on Sept. 28.

He still had concerns, but "he thought it would be a safe country, and it would be questioned, this issue would be swiftly solved," said Cengiz, according to an account of the interview by Reuters.

Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of Jamal Khashoggi, arrived in the US Thursday after departing Saudi Arabia, one person close to the family said. Salah is a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who had previously been handed over to the United States. All four of Khashoggi's children are now in the U.S.

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The Washington Post's Kareem Fahim contributed to this article.