ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he was awaiting the results of the investigation into the disappearance of a Saudi journalist, after a government source claimed Jamal Khashoggi was killed at his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
The Washington Post contributor, 59, vanished after an appointment with Saudi officials on Tuesday.
A Turkish government source said late Saturday that police believed Khashoggi was killed at the Istanbul consulate, which Riyadh strongly denied.
Khashoggi had gone to the consulate to obtain documents needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.
Commenting for the first time on the journalist’s disappearance, Erdogan refrained from giving credit to assassination claims. He said he would wait for the outcome of the current investigation before taking a decision.
“I am following the (issue) and we will inform the world whatever the outcome” of the official probe, which was launched on Saturday, Erdogan said.
“God willing we will not be faced with a situation we do not want,” the president told reporters in Ankara.
He said police were examining CCTV footage of entrances and exits at the consulate and Istanbul airport.
Police said earlier that around 15 Saudis, including officials, arrived in Istanbul on two flights on Tuesday and were at the consulate at the same time as Khashoggi.
“Based on their initial findings, the police believe that the journalist was killed by a team especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day,” the government source told AFP on Saturday.
The journalist went to the building but “did not come back out”, police were quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
– ‘Baseless’ claims –
The consulate rejected the claims that the journalist was killed there as “baseless”, in a Twitter message.
It said a Saudi team was in Turkey to investigate the disappearance.
The journalist’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter she was “waiting for an official confirmation from the Turkish government to believe” the claims.
In his newspaper columns, Khashoggi has been critical of some of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen.
His criticisms appeared in both the Arab and Western press.
The former government adviser, who turns 60 on October 13, has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since last year to avoid possible arrest.
Yasin Aktay, an official in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) who was close to the journalist, said Khashoggi had made an appointment in advance with the consulate and called to check the documents were ready.
“His friends had warned him, ‘Don’t go there, it is not safe,’ but he said they could not do anything to him in Turkey,” said Aktay.
He added that he still hoped the reports of his friend’s death were untrue.