Erdoğan to reveal 'naked truth' about Khashoggi's death

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears primed to assemble two weeks of leaks, insinuation and police evidence in an explosive speech in the Turkish parliament on Tuesday alleging that the Saudi Arabian government murdered the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Turkish soil. After weeks of leaks by Turkish police implying that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, must have known of a premeditated murder, there was no last-minute sign that the Turkish president would hold back from revealing what he has described as the “naked truth” about Khashoggi’s death. On Monday an aide vowed: “Nothing will remain secret.” Erdoğan’s statement to members of his AK party coincides with the opening by the crown prince himself of an investment conference in Riyadh. Aides say Erdoğan will address Saudi Arabia’s belated admission that Khashoggi died inside the Saudi consulate, where he was last seen on 2 October. The crown prince has denied any knowledge of the killing, and his foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, has said the operation was a terrible mistake carried out by a rogue group. The White House has been making frantic private efforts to reduce the fallout from Saudi Arabia’s disastrous mishandling of the Khashoggi case, urging Erdoğan not to rub the crown prince’s face in the dirt. On Monday, Donald Trump told reporters “I am not satisfied with what I’ve heard” about the case, and later the president told USA Today he believed the death was “a plot gone awry”. However, that evening the US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, met the crown prince for talks in Riyadh, where they stressed “the importance of the Saudi-US strategic partnership”. Reuters reported on Monday that CIA director Gina Haspel would travel to Istanbul to “work on the investigation”.