Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist and commentator, went missing Tuesday after he entered the\u00a0Saudi<\/a>\u00a0consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document.<\/p>\n Turkish<\/a>\u00a0and Saudi authorities have offered conflicting accounts about his whereabouts. While Saudi officials say Khashoggi left the premises on Tuesday, Turkish officials say security camera footage revealed he had not left the consulate.<\/p>\n A<\/span>\u00a0longtime journalist, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist,\u00a0Khashoggi was a Saudi political insider until he began criticising the crackdown on dissent following the seizure of the levers of power by the young Saudi Crown Prince\u00a0Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>, known by his initials \u201cMBS\u2019. Last year, he went into\u00a0self-imposed exile in the US fearing arrest for the publication of progressive and critical columns on the Saudi regime.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has become one-man rule,\u201d Khashoggi\u00a0told FRANCE 24<\/a>\u00a0in an interview last year. \u201c[MBS] has control of everything. He is creating an environment of intimidation and fear. Saudis are being silenced. That is not a recipe for reform in Saudi Arabia \u2013 and he needs to do something about that.\u201d<\/p>\n Khashoggi\u2019s Turkish fianc\u00e9e, who was waiting for him outside the consulate, reported him missing Tuesday evening after he failed to emerge after office hours.<\/p>\n After an initial period of silence Saudi Arabia said the consulate was working with Turkish authorities \u201cto uncover the circumstances of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi after he left the consulate building\u201d.<\/p>\n Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin however told reporters on Wednesday the journalist was being held at the consulate, adding that Ankara was in touch with Saudi officials.<\/p>\n Turkey has \u2018very little leverage\u2019 over Saudi Arabia<\/strong><\/p>\n The incident is likely to strain relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, explained FRANCE 24\u2019s Leela Jacinto, noting that official statements by Turkish officials underscored Ankara\u2019s displeasure over the latest development.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem though is that Saudi-Turkish relations are already strained and Ankara has very little leverage over Riyadh. Remember Turkey backed Qatar last year in the intra-Gulf spat between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Turkey also helped Qatar circumvent the economic embargo imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia,\u201d explained Jacinto.<\/p>\n Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has detained high profile figures, including Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri who was summoned to Riyadh and held incommunicado until French President Emmanuel Macron intervened to diffuse the crisis.<\/p>\n (FRANCE 24)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Ankara over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Turkish official revealed Thursday. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist and commentator, went missing Tuesday after he entered the\u00a0Saudi\u00a0consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document. Turkish\u00a0and Saudi authorities have offered conflicting accounts about his whereabouts. While Saudi officials say Khashoggi left the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}