World View: Disappearance of Saudi Journalist in Turkey Threatens to Upset Mideast Relations

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Suspicious disappearance of Saudi journalist in Turkey threatens to upset Mideast relations
Khashoggi incident threatens Saudi relationship with the West

Suspicious disappearance of Saudi journalist in Turkey threatens to upset Mideast relations

The Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Sunday (AP)

Turkey’s media are now saying with increasing certainty that the Saudi journalist who visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday and never came out was murdered by the Saudis and that his body was removed by a group of 12 Saudi officials.

The sequence of events was as follow. Jamal Khashoggi, 59, is a Saudi journalist who writes for the Washington Post who has been increasingly critical of Saudi’s participation in the war in Yemen, and of the human rights record of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been effectively running the country since 2015. Fearing for his life, Khashoggi has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States for the last year.

On September 28, he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get marriage documents related to his planned marriage to his fiancé, a Turkish citizen, Hatice (Khadija) Cengiz. On Tuesday of last week, October 2, he returned to the consulate. Before entering the consulate, he told his fiancé, who was going to wait in the car, that if he was not out within 20 minutes, she should alert the Turkish authorities.

He did not come out and she raised the alarm. The situation reached the top diplomatic levels between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia claimed that Khashoggi had left the embassy without anyone noticing. Turkey’s forensic analysis examined all the CCTV footage for the consulate entrances and exits, for the area around the consulate, and at the airport, and could find no sign of Khashoggi.

On Sunday, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Khashoggi a “journalist and a friend,” and said,

God willing, we will not be faced with an undesirable situation we do not want. His fiancé hopes the same. Whatever comes of this, we will be the ones to declare it to the world. It is very, very upsetting for us that it happened in our country.

However, according to media reports, Turkish officials are increasingly convinced that the Saudis killed Khashoggi. An investigation revealed that, on Tuesday morning, the day when Khashoggi was scheduled to return to the consulate, 12 Saudi officials arrived in Istanbul in two private jets, and went to the consulate. Shortly after Khashoggi entered the consulate, never to be seen again, the 12 Saudi officials returned to the airport and flew back to Saudi Arabia.

Turkish officials reportedly believe that those 12 Saudi officials killed Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and then transported his dead body back to Saudi Arabia.

The president of Turk-Arab Media Association, Turan Kislakci, said on Sunday that his organization has confirmed through multiple sources that Khashoggi was murdered:

There is evidence that he was murdered. We initially thought Jamal Khashoggi was kept at the guest house [at the consulate] and that he was taken out afterwards. However, we have confirmed through multiple sources that he was killed. The details will be explained.

However, a Saudi official is saying that the Turkish accusations are “baseless” and that a team of Saudi investigators will take part in the investigation.

In addition, Saudi media are claiming that the woman named “Khadijah” is “promoting herself as Jamal’s fiancé,” but is not known to Jamal’s family and she is not his fiancé. Hurriyet (Turkey) and Globe Post (Turkey) and Washington Post and Saudi Gazette

Khashoggi incident threatens Saudi relationship with the West

The Turks are furious at this and, if it is true that the Saudis performed an assassination of a journalist on Turkish soil, then they expect to treat it as a major international incident.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia relations are already at a deep low.

Recall that in June of last year, several Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and United Arab Emirates (UAE) – broke relations with Qatar and imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar. Amazingly enough, that blockade is still in place. International attempts at mediation have failed, and the rhetoric has, if anything, gotten worse.

From the beginning, Turkey has been highly critical of the blockade and has helped Qatar by sending troops to Qatar in support, and by increasing trade with Qatar, circumventing the blockade.

Saudi Arabia has made a number of demands on Qatar to end the crisis. These include ending all relationships with Iran and Turkey, ending support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and shutting down al-Jazeera, which has been highly critical of Saudi Arabia – things that are never going to happen.

In the current febrile atmosphere in the Mideast, the Khashoggi incident could have larger implications. It could cause the U.S. and Europe to reevaluate their relationships with Saudi Arabia, and with Turkish officials so enraged by this, it could trigger a more serious response. Al-Jazeera and France 24 and Al Monitor and AFP

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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Istanbul, Saudi Arabia, Jamal Khashoggi, Hatice (Khadija) Cengiz, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman, Turan Kislakci, Bahrain, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, UAE, Qatar
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Suspicious disappearance of Saudi journalist in Turkey threatens to upset Mideast relations

Khashoggi incident threatens Saudi relationship with the West

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