Turkey warned Saudi Arabia that it has evidence on “who is responsible” for the disappearance of a missing Saudi journalist on Friday after the US took a harder line against the kingdom, Financial Times reports.
Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minster, said that Ankara had “information and evidence in hand” about the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent commentator who vanished after a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh has insisted that it had no any involvement in the disappearance of the Washington Post columnist. Turkish officials have said privately that they believe he was murdered at the consulate by a hit squad sent from Riyadh.
Mr Cavusoglu denied a report that Turkey had played an audio recording of the moment of Mr Khashoggi’s death to Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, when he visited Ankara on Wednesday. “It is not in question that Turkey gave Pompeo or any other American official any audio recording,” he told reporters. He said that Turkey would go public with evidence once a Turkish investigation had concluded.
“We have information and evidence in hand, resulting from the investigation, on what happened to Khashoggi and who is responsible. When the result of this investigation clearly emerges, we will share it with public, because the world rightfully wants to know what happened to Khashoggi,” he said.