Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness’

The Turkish authorities have been revealing horrific details for weeks on the murder and announced the dismemberment of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in front of the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, interested in maintaining good relations with Saudi Arabia, has so far remained silent.

On Sunday, Erdogan broke the silence and promised that within 48 hours he would remove the cover completely from what his spokesmen now call a Saudi camouflage.

"We will reveal it," he said in a televised speech. "It will be revealed in full nakedness."

The international outrage over Khashoggi's assassination is increasingly focused on the possible culpability of Saudi Arabia's de facto sovereign, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan seems to perceive an opportunity.

Mr. Khashoggi's status as an American resident and columnist for the Washington Post, coupled with the clumsy treatment of the Saudi scandal, gave Mr. Erdogan an unexpected opportunity to inflict damage on the Crown Prince, a friendly ally in public but Fierce rival in private.

The Turkish president can now risk upsetting a country that is among the richest and most influential in the region. But he may have come to the conclusion that the risk deserves an opportunity to strike a blow in a larger regional conflict.

Crown Prince Mohammed is the hub of a coalition of Middle Eastern states hostile to Erdogan and his Islamist allies. Erdogan became a supporter of the revolts of the Arab Spring and Islamists with electoral ideas hoping to bring them to power.

By insinuating that he could reveal details of Mr. Khashoggi's murder that may involve the Crown Prince, Erdogan raises serious concerns in much of the coalition formed in Saudi Arabia to crush the Islamists. The coalition extends from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Persian Gulf to strong men in Egypt and eastern Libya.

The reaction to Khashoggi's murder "is the most important event in the region since the Arab Spring," said Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.

For weeks after Khashoggi's disappearance, Crown Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials insisted he had left the consulate freely and did not know where he was.

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Then, in a new version of the facts, the Royal Court stated that, in fact, Mr. Khashoggi, 59, had been strangled by accident in a fight with Saudi intelligence agents. The Saudis have a mission to persuade him to return voluntarily to the kingdom.

A Turkish police officer is looking around the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last week.

They insisted that the Crown Prince was unaware of what had happened and did not receive an answer for more than two weeks.

"Clearly, a huge mistake has been made," UN Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Sunday in a message to Mr. Khashoggi's family, "Our condolences are for them." We feel his pain. "

If the Saudis expected their new explanation to limit the fury, they would surely be disappointed. President Trump, who initially said the Saudi claims were credible, seemed more and more doubtful.

"Obviously, there have been disappointments and lies," the president said in an interview with the Washington Post. "Their stories are everywhere."

Others were more energetic.

"They would have done better to say that Colonel Mustard did it at the library with the candlestick," said Steven Cook, who studies Turkey and Saudi Arabia at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Who would like to be associated with this story?"
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Mr. Erdogan, he would have argued, might have seemed ridiculous to his own national political base, especially after the numerous leaks of information about the murder in pro-government newspapers.

Now, Erdogan, whose government is one of the biggest jailers of journalists, can take a new turn as a lawyer in the free press demanding that justice be done to Mr. Khashoggi.

"What a happy gift that Mr.B.S. has made to Erdogan!" Said Mr. Cook using the shortcut for the Crown Prince.

Some noted that, despite all the turmoil, Mr. Erdogan had continued to warn the Saudis for 48 hours and had refrained from providing details of Mr. Khashoggi's death. According to some, the delay could be intended to allow some type of accommodation with the Saudis.

One possibility: the value of the Turkish currency has fallen under the burden of debt accumulated during a long construction boom, and oil-rich Saudis could silently help maintain the exchange rate.

Turkish policemen in front of Saudi consul general's residence awaiting the arrival of investigators last week.

"Maybe I'll give the Saudis another 48 hours to come up with a better offer," said Stephens of the London think tank.

But any deal to limit Saudi embarrassment, he said, will surely have a higher price now that the Royal Court has mismanaged its earlier statements.

Partly because of the importance of the kingdom as a regional power and trading partner, Erdogan has long treated Saudi Arabia differently from the United Arab Emirates, his closest Arab ally.

The Emirates, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, are seen as leaders in a campaign across the region against Islamist voters, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which is closely linked to the Justice and Development Party. Erdogan.

The UAE has worked with Saudi Arabia to try to reject the uprisings of the Arab Spring. They lobbied Washington, used their pan-Arab media and provided financial support to the region's old-school autoritarians.

As fraternal Islamist parties took power after the uprisings of the Arab Spring, the UAE tried to pressure its Arab allies, as well as the United States and Britain, to declare the Brotherhood illegal. as a terrorist group. Saudi Arabia did it, but not the Americans and the British.

Last year, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia also collaborated to isolate and block Qatar to support the Islamists under the guise of the Brotherhood.

Mr. Erdogan and the U.A.E. are more or less openly hostile to each other. Turkey helped support Qatar in the face of the blockade by sending troops and airlifting in goods. Pro-government Turkish newspapers often link the Emirates to an attempted coup against Mr. Erdogan in 2016.

Last December, Mr. Erdogan traded public insults with the Emirates’ foreign minister, Prince Abdullah bin Zayed, after Prince Abdullah reposted a tweet describing an early 20th-century Ottoman general as one of “Erdogan’s ancestors,” saying he had robbed the holy city of Medina, in Saudi Arabia.

“Know your place,” Mr. Erdogan shot back at the foreign minister in a speech, referring to the Emiratis as “miserable people.”

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is widely regarded as a protected emirate. The Emirates were their first champions in Washington and the region, as they moved from relative darkness to three years to consolidate their power over the kingdom, defeating a previous heir apparent more critical of the Emirates and less hostile to the United States . Political Islam.

Since then, Crown Prince Mohammed has advocated reforms in the model of relatively cosmopolitan and even authoritarian emirate cities, such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And he easily joined the anti-Islamist blockade of Qatar and arrests of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Saudi Arabia.

Although Mr. Erdogan criticized the United States, he maintained cordial relations with Crown Prince Mohammed, believing he could rule the kingdom at age 33 for the next five decades. Immediately after Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance, this trend persisted.

Mr. Erdogan was a personal friend of Mr. Khashoggi, who had worked for decades as a featured commentator in the Saudi media. He was also a former member of the fraternity with many friends of the group. However, even after Erdogan was informed of reports that Saudi agents murdered and dismembered his friend, Turkish officials said, the president refrained from publicly accusing the Saudis of avoiding a breakup. full diplomatic

Turkish officials noted that Mr. Khashoggi was not Turkish so his assassination was not necessarily a Turkish problem. Some have widely hinted that Mr. Erdogan might be ready to move forward if the Saudis gave almost any explanation for the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, even blaming him for a "dishonest operation" aimed at diverting the guilt from Crown Prince Mohammed.

But after the apparent failure of Saudi Arabia's latest story, Erdogan started sending very different signals.

The pro-government media now demand that the Saudis admit that high officials of the royal court have ordered the murder, as Turkish officials who have requested anonymity have indicated to be able to show through audio recordings and others evidence of the murder.

Some even demand that the Crown Prince Mohammed be held responsible, deprived of his power or removed from office as heir to the throne.

Erdogan also took a shot in that direction on Sunday. "And now, what does the world say about whom?" He said, apparently making reference to the Crown Prince. "We'll see all this."

"All this needs to be explained with all the details," he said about persistent issues surrounding the killing.

He promised to answer them in a televised speech in Parliament in two days.

"Tuesday, he said, I will say it very differently in the speech of my parliamentary group, I will go into details."