ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey has accepted a Saudi proposal to form a joint working group to investigate the case of missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkish Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin was quoted as saying on Thursday by Anadolu agency.</s>(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump says the U.S. is looking into the fate of a Saudi writer missing and feared murdered but expressed reservations over calls to withhold further U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, warning that such a move “would be hurting us.”

Decades of close U.S.-Saudi relations, which have only intensified under Trump, appeared in jeopardy by the suggestion of a carefully plotted murder of a government critic, Jamal Khashoggi, 59, who disappeared a week ago after entering a Saudi consulate in Turkey. The wealthy former government insider had been living in the U.S. in self-imposed exile.

In an interview Wednesday with “Fox News @ Night,” Trump said he wanted to find out what happened to Khashoggi but appeared reluctant to consider blocking arms sales, citing economic reasons.

“I think that would be hurting us,” Trump said. “We have jobs, we have a lot of things happening in this country. We have a country that’s doing probably better economically than it’s ever done before.”

He continued: “Part of that is what we’re doing with our defense systems and everybody’s wanting them. And frankly I think that that would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country. I mean, you’re affecting us and, you know, they’re always quick to jump that way.”

On his first international trip as president, Trump visited Saudi Arabia and announced $110 billion in proposed arms sales. The administration also relies on Saudi support for its Middle East agenda to counter Iranian influence, fight extremism and support an expected peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians.

Earlier Wednesday, Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reviewed U.S. intelligence on the case, said it was likely that Khashoggi was killed the day he walked into the consulate. Whatever took place, Corker said, “there was Saudi involvement” and “everything points to them.”

More than 20 Republican and Democratic senators instructed Trump to order an investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance under legislation that authorizes imposition of sanctions for perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross human rights violations.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a longtime critic of the Saudi government, has said he’ll try to force a vote in the Senate blocking U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said it would be time for the U.S. to rethink its relationship with Saudi Arabia if it turned out Khashoggi was lured to his death by the Saudis.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to get paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage while his Turkish fiancee waited outside. Turkish authorities have said he was killed by members of an elite Saudi “assassination squad,” an allegation the Saudi government has dismissed.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday evening that U.S. intelligence intercepts outlined a Saudi plan to detain Khashoggi. The Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia to Saudi Arabia and then detain him.</s>ISTANBUL — Two Gulfstream jets carrying 15 Saudis landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport before dawn on the day last week that journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate and vanished. The men checked into hotels and left Turkey later that night.

Turkish media, which released surveillance camera video of the men on Wednesday, said they were members of an elite Saudi “assassination squad,” sent to kill Khashoggi, a Saudi critic.

Saudi Arabia remained silent at the accusation as the images were seen around the world, raising pressure on the kingdom to explain what happened to the writer, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Adding to the macabre mystery, a Turkish official told The Associated Press that one member of the team in the Oct. 2 video was an “autopsy expert.”

Saudi Arabia has dismissed allegations it played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance as “baseless,” but it has offered no evidence to support its contention he left the consulate unharmed last week and vanished into Istanbul while his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, waited outside.

The video, shown on the state-run broadcaster TRT and others, did not offer definitive proof about Khashoggi’s fate. Turkish officials have said that they fear the team killed him.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner have spoken to the crown prince about the 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, the White House announced.

President Trump said the U.S. is “demanding” answers from its close ally, but he did not disclose any details.

“It’s a very serious situation for us and this White House,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We do not like seeing what’s going on. Now, as you know, they’re saying ‘We had nothing to do with it.’ But so far everyone’s saying they had nothing to do with it.”

Some media alleged that the Saudi Consulate’s 28 local staff were given the day off Oct. 2 because a “diplomats’ meeting” would be held there on that day.</s>More than a week has passed since Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi vanished after visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Turkish authorities are telling journalists what they think happened, citing released video footage: that Khashoggi was targeted and murdered.

President Trump said Wednesday that he has spoken to the Saudi government "at the highest levels" about the situation.

"We cannot let this happen to reporters, to anybody. And we're going to get to the bottom of it," Trump said. He said the first lady's office was making arrangements to bring Khashoggi's fiancée, Turkish national Hatice Cengiz, to the White House.

In the days since Khashoggi disappeared, there have been few signs that the Trump administration was putting pressure on Riyadh to explain what had happened.

But in a statement Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump adviser Jared Kushner spoke to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday about the matter. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also spoke with the crown prince "to reiterate the United States' request for information," Sanders said.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that before Khashoggi disappeared, U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications in which the Saudis had been discussing a plot to abduct him. Khashoggi has been a contributing writer for The Post.

But on Wednesday, the State Department said the U.S. had no advance knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not directly accused Saudi Arabia of disappearing Khashoggi. He said if they have footage of Khashoggi leaving the consulate, they should release it, the Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, a newspaper close to Erdogan published the names and photographs of 15 Saudi men whom it said were sent to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi.

The version of events described by Turkish authorities is grisly. One Turkish security official told The New York Times that within two hours of arriving at the consulate, Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered with a bone saw that the Saudi team had brought. He compared the killing to the movie Pulp Fiction.

The Post obtained a series of surveillance video clips that purport to show movements involved in the killing or abduction of Khashoggi: the journalist entering the consulate; a black Mercedes leaving the consulate and then arriving at the consul general's house; Cengiz, his fiancée, pacing outside the consulate as she makes phone calls; the Saudi men leaving an Istanbul hotel and getting on planes at the airport. The Post notes that the clips have inconsistent time stamps at one point, are too blurry to make out key license plate numbers and are heavily edited throughout.

Khashoggi is a resident of the United States and has been living in Washington, D.C. The journalist is the former editor-in-chief of a Saudi newspaper and was an adviser to Saudi government officials. Khashoggi had written columns critical of the Saudi government in The Post in the past year.

In an op-ed published in The Post on Tuesday, Khashoggi's fiancée implored Trump and the first lady to become involved in the search for answers.

"I also urge Saudi Arabia, especially King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to show the same level of sensitivity and release CCTV footage from the consulate," Cengiz wrote. "Although this incident could potentially fuel a political crisis between the two nations, let us not lose sight of the human aspect of what happened. Jamal is a valuable person, an exemplary thinker and a courageous man who has been fighting for his principles."</s>ISTANBUL (AP) — Surveillance footage aired by Turkish media on Wednesday purports to show a team of Saudis arriving in Istanbul the day Jamal Khashoggi went missing, a black van leaving the Saudi Consulate after he entered, and the team checking out and departing the country later that night.

What it doesn't show is the Saudi journalist ever leaving the building.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who has written columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, went missing on Oct. 2. Turkish officials fear he was killed inside the building. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations, insisting he left the consulate on his own.

The footage aired Wednesday begins by showing the 3:28 a.m. arrival on Oct. 2 of one of two private Gulfstream jets that Turkish media say were carrying the 15 Saudis, who allegedly flew into and out of Istanbul on the day Khashoggi went missing.

The Sabah newspaper, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, identified the team members, including several alleged security officials, and published photos of each of them, apparently taken at passport control. It described them as an "assassination squad" sent to target Khashoggi.

Minutes after their arrival at Ataturk International Airport, two cars can be seen taking the men to Gate E, where eight of them are seen on camera passing through passport control. State broadcaster TRT World, which aired the footage, says the jet was carrying nine men.

Footage time-stamped 4:51 a.m. and 4:53 a.m. shows the men, carrying small carry-on bags, checking into the Movenpick hotel near the consulate. A video caption says seven other men checked in at another nearby hotel at different times.

The video then cuts away to traffic outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul's upscale 4th Levent neighborhood, showing vehicles with green diplomatic license plates.

At 1:14 p.m., Khashoggi is seen walking into the consulate, wearing a dark blazer and light trousers. A man with a light blazer outside the consulate bows slightly as the writer enters the building.

Nearly two hours later, the video shows two vehicles with diplomatic plates —a luxury black sedan and a black Mercedes VITO van— leave through the police barricades outside the consulate.

A map shows the van's route from the consulate to the nearby official residence of the Saudi consul general, where CCTV footage shows it arriving at 3:07 p.m.

A suited guard speaks into the van for about a minute as an Audi sedan pulls up in front and a passenger exits to enter the residence. A minute later, a man disembarks from the front passenger seat of the van and also enters the building. A flurry of activity is seen outside the residence, with men going in and out, until the van parks in the garage.

At 5:32 p.m., cameras show Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, outside the police barricades of the consulate, speaking into her cellphone. Khashoggi had left his phones with her before entering and told her to wait outside and alert the authorities if he did not return. She says she has not seen him since then.

About two and a half hours later, several men are seen leaving a hotel with their carry-on bags. The video ends with shots of two private jets, saying that six men left at 5:40 p.m. and seven left at 9 p.m.</s>What does new video in Saudi writer's disappearance show?

ISTANBUL (AP) — Surveillance footage aired by Turkish media on Wednesday purports to show a team of Saudis arriving in Istanbul the day Jamal Khashoggi went missing, a black van leaving the Saudi Consulate after he entered, and the team checking out and departing the country later that night.

What it doesn't show is the Saudi journalist ever leaving the building.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who has written columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, went missing on Oct. 2. Turkish officials fear he was killed inside the building. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations, insisting he left the consulate on his own.

The footage aired Wednesday begins by showing the 3:28 a.m. arrival on Oct. 2 of one of two private Gulfstream jets that Turkish media say were carrying the 15 Saudis, who allegedly flew into and out of Istanbul on the day Khashoggi went missing.

The Sabah newspaper, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, identified the team members, including several alleged security officials, and published photos of each of them, apparently taken at passport control. It described them as an "assassination squad" sent to target Khashoggi.

Minutes after their arrival at Ataturk International Airport, two cars can be seen taking the men to Gate E, where eight of them are seen on camera passing through passport control. State broadcaster TRT World, which aired the footage, says the jet was carrying nine men.

Footage time-stamped 4:51 a.m. and 4:53 a.m. shows the men, carrying small carry-on bags, checking into the Movenpick hotel near the consulate. A video caption says seven other men checked in at another nearby hotel at different times.

The video then cuts away to traffic outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul's upscale 4th Levent neighborhood, showing vehicles with green diplomatic license plates.

At 1:14 p.m., Khashoggi is seen walking into the consulate, wearing a dark blazer and light trousers. A man with a light blazer outside the consulate bows slightly as the writer enters the building.

Nearly two hours later, the video shows two vehicles with diplomatic plates —a luxury black sedan and a black Mercedes VITO van— leave through the police barricades outside the consulate.

A map shows the van's route from the consulate to the nearby official residence of the Saudi consul general, where CCTV footage shows it arriving at 3:07 p.m.

A suited guard speaks into the van for about a minute as an Audi sedan pulls up in front and a passenger exits to enter the residence. A minute later, a man disembarks from the front passenger seat of the van and also enters the building. A flurry of activity is seen outside the residence, with men going in and out, until the van parks in the garage.

At 5:32 p.m., cameras show Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, outside the police barricades of the consulate, speaking into her cellphone. Khashoggi had left his phones with her before entering and told her to wait outside and alert the authorities if he did not return. She says she has not seen him since then.

About two and a half hours later, several men are seen leaving a hotel with their carry-on bags. The video ends with shots of two private jets, saying that six men left at 5:40 p.m. and seven left at 9 p.m.</s>October 09, 2018 “Information Clearing House“ – The Wall Street Journal publishes a predictably toothlesseditorial in response to reports that the Saudi government has murdered Jamal Khashoggi:

The Saudi reformers have allies in Washington, but they will lose them if they aren’t transparent about Jamal Khashoggi’s fate.

If the latest outrage from Mohammed bin Salman changes anything, it should at the very least put an end to the absurd description of the crown prince and his allies as “reformers” once and for all. Reformer is a label that Western pundits and politicians use to describe foreign leaders when they want to express approval and support. It is often not intended to be an accurate statement about the leader’s record, but rather serves to distract from the worst parts of that record in order to sell the leader to Western audiences. Foreign leaders know that they can win a lot of supporters in the West just by saying the right things about a handful of issues, and as long as they keep up appearances their Western boosters will overlook or even defend the worst excesses.

All Mohammed bin Salman had to do was talk about moderate Islam and diversifying the Saudi economy and then emphasize his hatred for Iran, and his fans were immediately hooked by the promise of what he might do in the future. In return, they studiously ignored the many horrible things he was doing in the present, they shifted blame for the war on Yemen to others, or they made lame attempts to spin his purge as an “anti-corruption drive.” The problem for his fans was that Mohammed bin Salman’s pattern of reckless behavior didn’t stop and wasn’t limited only to his foreign policy debacles. The cruelty and incompetence that the Saudi coalition has displayed in the war on Yemen have been replicated in Saudi Arabia’s internal affairs as well. The kingdom’s intensifying repression and arbitrary arrests have scared off foreign investment, caused massive capital flight, and exposed the makeover that pro-Saudi P.R. firms have tried to give the kingdom as the sham that it always was.

The crown prince has already proven himself to be an impetuous, clumsy, inept, and brutal ruler, and no one should have any illusions at this point about what the Saudi government is going to be like as long as he is in power. The war on Yemen was the earliest, biggest, and most destructive proof of this, and there have been many more examples in the last three and a half years. By itself, Khashoggi’s murder should severely strain relations between Saudi Arabia and its Western patrons. As the latest in a string of outrages and crimes, it should force a serious reassessment of the current relationship that the U.S. has with Riyadh. That relationship is noxious, and it can’t be allowed to continue in its current form. We know in advance that the Trump administration will do the bare minimum it can get away with in response to the Saudi government’s murder of a journalist and U.S. resident, but this crime may be flagrant and appalling enough to turn many more members of Congress against supporting and arming the Saudis.</s>A grave picture is emerging in Saudi Arabia. It is suffocating. It is scary. It is terrifying.

Yes, Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) must be credited for opening up the Saudi society — somewhat; the clergy was reined in — to an extent; permission was "granted" to women to drive, stadium doors were opened to them, movies and cultural activities were finally allowed.

MBS was a ray of hope. But the situation has since darkened.

On Oct. 2, eminent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a fierce critic of MBS, living in self-exile in the U.S., disappeared after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul for some personal paperwork. Many believe he needed to be silenced, and he was.

I knew Khashoggi, from his Arab News days. Having spent time in Afghanistan, at times in the company of Osama bin Laden, he was the Afghan specialist at the newspaper. Courtesy of his stay in Afghanistan, he was close to the Saudi intelligence apparatus and its then-chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal.

Khashoggi's disappearance is not an event in isolation. For more than a year now, ever since MBS emerged on the political horizon as the all-powerful, the Saudi regime seems bent upon silencing dissent — at any cost.

In the first wave, in September 2017, dozens of dissidents, writers and clerics were arrested, for "anti-state" activities. Reports say authorities were seeking the death penalty against several among them, including cleric Salman al-Awda, leader of Saudi Arabia's Islamic awakening movement. The influential cleric, with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, is reportedly facing 37 charges, including ties to the Qatari government and the Muslim Brotherhood.

After the arrests, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir was quoted as saying that the roundup had targeted people who were "pushing an extremist agenda" with the help of foreign funding.

Then, on Nov. 4, Saudi authorities initiated an unprecedented mass arrest of senior and influential princes, current and former government officials and prominent businessmen over corruption allegations. Yet, most arrested were the ones who could have politically challenged MBS — at some point.

Earlier this year, Riyadh began a sweeping crackdown on women's rights activists, arresting at least 13 women under the pretext of maintaining national security. Nine of them remain in detention.</s>Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered that Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi be lured to that country from his home in the U.S. and detained, the paper reported Wednesday evening.

Khashoggi, 59, has not been seen since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkish officials have said that they believe Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered inside the building by members of an elite "assassination squad." Saudi officials say Khashoggi left through an alternate exit, but have offered no proof to support that contention.

The Post report cited U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan, as well as interviews with some of Khashoggi's friends. They claimed that senior Saudi officials had approached the journalist with offers of protection -- including a government job in at least one case -- if he would return to his native country. According to one friend, Khashoggi told him "I don't trust them one bit" after a conversation with one such official.

Since Khashoggi's disappearance, the Trump administration has come under increasing pressure to press the Riyadh government for details about his whereabouts. Earlier Wednesday, a bipartisan group of more than 20 senators instructed Trump to order an investigation into Khashoggi's disappearance under legislation that authorizes the imposition of sanctions for perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross human rights violations.

"It’s pretty clear to me that something very bad happened to this man," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum." "If this happened, if they murdered this journalist who works for The Washington Post in a consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, that’s a game-changer for me."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said national security adviser John Bolton and presidential senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke on Tuesday to the crown prince about Khashoggi. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo then had a follow-up call with the crown prince to reiterate the U.S. request for information and a thorough, transparent investigation. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said that the U.S. had "no advance knowledge" of Khashoggi's disappearance.

Earlier Wednesday, Turkish media published surveillance footage of the men Ankara believes to have been part of the "assassination squad." The silent video also showed one of two private Gulfstream jets that Turkish media said carried the Saudi group, who flew in and out of Istanbul the day Khashoggi disappeared.

The Sabah newspaper, which is close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, published images of the group that were apparently taken at passport control at the airport. The state-run Anadolu news agency published the names and birth dates of all 15 Saudis.

The footage shows some of the Saudis leaving a hotel and Khashoggi entering the consulate, walking past a black Mercedes van with diplomatic plates parked adjacent to the entrance. An hour and 54 minutes later, according to the time stamp, a black Mercedes van drives about 1.2 miles to the consul's home, where it was parked in a garage.

Khashoggi, a wealthy former government insider who had been living in the U.S. in self-imposed exile, had written a series of columns for the Post critical of Mohammed bin Salman. The crown prince, who ascended to that position last year, has led a widely publicized drive to reform the conservative Sunni monarchy but has also presided over the arrests of activists and businessmen.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage while his Turkish fiancee waited outside. The Haberturk newspaper reported Wednesday that Khashoggi's family was not aware that he was in Turkey at the time of his disappearance and neither knew that he was engaged to be married nor that he intended to apply for a marriage license.

Fox News' Nicholas Kalman and Gillian Turner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>U.S. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Wednesday demanded a halt in military support to Saudi Arabia until a Saudi journalist who disappeared in the Consulate in Istanbul was “returned alive”.

Jamal Khashoggi has been missing since Oct. 2, when he visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, amid speculation that he was killed by Saudi authorities.

In an article in The Atlantic, Paul said that he intended to introduce legislation to “cut all funding, training, advising, and any other coordination” with and to the Kingdom until Khashoggi is confirmed to be alive.

“The regime must be held accountable for Jamal Khashoggi,” he said.

Slamming the Saudi “oppressive regime”, Paul expressed “deep disappointment” with his fellow senators for not taking measures earlier.

“No amount of oil business or arms deals justifies our collusion with a regime that sponsors jihadism around the world,” he said.

He also criticized the OPEC nation’s “reckless” actions in the Yemen conflict.

Saudi authorities have yet to give a clear explanation on the fate of Khashoggi as several countries -- particularly Turkey, the U.S. and the UK -- press for clarification.

According to his fiancée Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi first arrived at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Sept. 28. After being told his documents would be ready in a week, Khashoggi went to London and returned to Istanbul on Oct. 1.

Khashoggi called the consulate and was told "that documents are being prepared" and he could come to the consulate. He went to the diplomatic building on Oct. 2 with Cengiz but was not seen after entering it.

On the same day, 15 Saudis, including several officials, arrived in Istanbul on two planes and visited the consulate while Khashoggi was also inside, police sources said.

This article has been adapted from its original source.
Turkish officials claim to have audio and video evidence of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi being tortured and murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.