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ISTANBUL – The mystery deepened on Wednesday about the fate of a veteran.
The journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, a sharp critic of the Saudi leadership, went to the consulate to obtain a document, but never came out, his fiancée and several close friends said.
On Wednesday, the Saudi government said he had left the consulate, the Turkish government said he was still inside, and his fiancée and friends said he was still missing.
His fiancée, Hatice, who asked for his name for the day, was asked for the opinion of the consulate until midnight Tuesday and returned when the consulate reopened on Wednesday morning.
She said that she had heard of Mr. Khashoggi since he had entered the consulate around 1:30 pm on Tuesday, and believed he had been detained by the Saudi government.
The Saudi government, however, said that Mr. Khashoggi "went missing inside the Saudi consulate" in Istanbul "are false."
"Mr. Khashoggi visited the consulate to inquire about his marital status and soon thereafter, "the statement by a Saudi official said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in diplomatic proceedings, added that Mr. Khashoggi "is not in the consulate nor in Saudi custody."
The disappearance presents Turkish officials with a sharp diplomatic challenge. Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Erdogan's national security adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, told reporters Wednesday that the Turkish authorities were working on the case. "Our related units are following the issue," he said, according to the Turkish news media. "According to information we have, this person, who is a Saudi citizen, is still at the Istanbul consulate of Saudi Arabia."
Turkish and international reporters gathered Wednesday outside the consulate, a two-story ocher-colored building behind high walls on a leafy side-street in Istanbul's business district. Police barriers, a long-term security feature, blocked the street.
Mr. Khashoggi's fiancée was still clutching the two telephones he was getting inside, waiting for him to reappear.
"He did not say it, but he was worried," she said in an interview on the side of the street. The consulate had been polite and co-operative, she said, but Mr. Khashoggi had been "stressed and sad" that he was forced to enter the consulate to obtain the papers he needed.
He had been told that he feared he could be kidnapped and returned to Saudi Arabia if he entered the consulate.
Members of the Turk-Arab Media Association, of which Mr. Khashoggi is a member, said they thought he was still inside the consulate building.
The Turkish police who provide security for the consulate checked their security cameras and did not see Mr. Khashoggi leave the consulate on foot, according to Turan Kislakci, a friend of Mr. Khashoggi's who is head of the association.
But he and others said that diplomatic cars had been moving in and out of the consulate since Tuesday.
Their fear is that Mr. Khashoggi, who has been living in self-imposed exile since last year, has been in Saudi Arabia.
As Saudi Arabia's day-to-day ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman Crown, has consolidated power, the government has arrested hundreds of clerics, activists and businessmen, some of whom have been detained outside the country and forcibly repatriated.
Mr. Khashoggi, who was a prominent Saudi journalist and an adviser to senior government officials, had been close to the ruling elite until he split with the government last year. He has since become an active critic of the government and was living in Washington.
Having divorced his wife, who had remained in Saudi Arabia, he went to Saudi Arabia to obtain a document certifying that he was no longer married.
David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from London.
