Al-Jazeera, Qatar, October 17
Within just a few days, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey gained widespread international attention and set all eyes in the global arena on Riyadh. There are many questions hanging in the air, but what we know for sure by now is the following: Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, October 2, but did not come out the same way he came in. We also know that since he disappeared at the consulate, it is Saudi Arabia that is ultimately responsible for his fate. Khashoggi’s case is of particular sensitivity to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for three main reasons. First, it is a humanitarian issue. Hiding, kidnapping, or killing a human being on Turkish soil is a serious issue that the Turkish authorities will seek to investigate. Second, Khashoggi was a notable journalist who was in the process of marrying his Turkish fiancée and was thus in the process of receiving Turkish citizenship. Third, the use of a diplomatic installation to conduct illegal activity on Turkish soil is a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic affairs, which could be considered a breach of Turkish sovereignty. For these three reasons, Ankara did not want this incident to go by unnoticed, so as to not create a precedent that allows these kinds of events to take place in the future. Erdogan does not want Arab states to settle their accounts with political opponents on Turkish territory, especially in light of the large number of political dissidents who sought refuge in Turkey following the Arab Spring. Despite the severity of this event, the reaction of the Turkish authorities was composed and measured. The Turkish Police released footage depicting Khashoggi’s arrival at the consulate, in addition to surveillance videos of what appears to be a squad of Saudi assassins arriving in Istanbul that day. Furthermore, Erdogan announced the launching of a full investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance to understand exactly what happened. Finally, Erdogan internationalized the incident. Instead of making it a Turkish problem, he succeeded in turning it into a truly global one. Much of this was achieved thanks to the global media, which devoted considerable attention to the affair. It remains somewhat remarkable that Riyadh has provided such a faint account of the events, and simply pretended that the incident never happened. Saudi Arabia’s silence may have served it well in the past, but given the growing interest in Jamal Khashoggi’s fate, this incident may very well come back to haunt Riyadh and its relations with its allies in the West. –Sayed al-Hajj