Turkey (October 22, 2018): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday vowed to reveal within days the “naked truth” over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as Riyadh said it did not know the whereabouts of his body and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had been unaware of any operation to murder him.
The Turkish leader´s statement came the day after Saudi authorities conceded Khashoggi had been killed inside their diplomatic compound in Istanbul. “We are looking for justice here and this will be revealed in all its naked truth, not through some ordinary steps but in all its naked truth,” Erdogan told a rally in Istanbul.
In his strongest comments to date on the affair, President Donald Trump accused Saudi Arabia of lying about the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who fell out of favour with the ultraconservative kingdom, as pressure built on the US administration to strike a tougher line.
The Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, on Sunday described the killing as a “tremendous mistake” and said it had been a “rogue operation” by individuals who “exceeded their responsibilities” and then “tried to cover up for it”.
Jubeir insisted in an interview that the operation was not ordered by the crown prince known by his initials MBS, also adding that “we don´t know where the body is”.
Erdogan, who has not yet directly blamed Saudi Arabia, held a telephone call with Trump on Sunday where the two leaders agreed the Khashoggi case needed to be clarified “in all its aspects,” a Turkish presidential source said.
Erdogan is expected to make a full statement to his party´s MPs in parliament at around 0800 GMT on Tuesday.
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