MBS chats with Erdogan as Khashoggi leaks flow

In a further unexpected twist in Turkey’s standoff with Saudi Arabia over murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly spoke by telephone with the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman today, reported the Turkish press, quoting unnamed Turkish presidential sources. The leaders reportedly discussed working together to bring clarity on the death of the Saudi dissident commentator who went missing after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

The conversation must have gone well, since the crown prince soon after told a business forum boycotted by international businessmen and politicians, "Many are trying to … drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. … They will not be able to do it as long as there is a King Salman, a Mohammed bin Salman and a President Erdogan."

Khashoggi was a vocal critic of the crown prince's murderous war in Yemen and crackdown on dissent in his columns for the Washington Post. There is widespread consensus that Khashoggi could not have been killed inside the consulate without the prince's prior knowledge. US President Donald Trump, who has shown extreme reluctance to link the prince to the commentator’s death, conceded that point. Trump told the Wall Street Journal yesterday, “He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be [informed], it would be him.”

Today’s phone call was said to have been instigated by the Saudi prince, a sure sign that he wants to staunch the damage caused by the steady flow of Turkish official leaks that have punched holes through Saudi Arabia’s initial claim that Khashoggi left the consulate alive and later that he died in a fistfight. The latest Saudi iteration is that Khashoggi’s death was a rogue operation carried out by renegade security officials that went wrong.