Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mujeb arrived in Istanbul early Monday to discuss the investigation over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor İrfan Fidan and members of the Turkish intelligence agency.
The senior Saudi official and the delegation accompanying him met with Fidan at the Çağlayan Courthouse in a closed door meeting that lasted for over an hour.
Al-Jazeera reported that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) refused to provide recordings and evidence on the case to al-Mujeb.
Speaking after the meeting was concluded, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu called on Saudi Arabia to reveal the "whole truth" about the killing.
"Those who committed the premeditated murder were arrested in Saudi Arabia. There is an investigation going on [in Saudi Arabia] as well," Çavuşoğlu said in a joint news conference with his Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts Elmar Mammadyarov and Davit Zalkaliani.
Noting that Turkey is trying to reveal all the names behind the incident, Çavuşoğlu said, "The body of Khashoggi couldn't be found yet."
He said the culprits were in Saudi Arabia and the country had a great responsibility in this regard. He added that Saudi's top prosecutor has also admitted that the murder was premeditated.
Khashoggi went missing on Oct. 2 after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. After days of denying knowledge of his whereabouts, Saudi Arabia claimed first that Khashoggi died during a "fistfight" inside the consulate and then almost three weeks after Khashoggi's disappearance, it accepted that the murder was premeditated.
"This is our concern. This investigation should be concluded as soon as possible," Çavuşoğlu said, adding that the whole world was waiting for the outcome. He also applauded cooperation and information sharing by the two countries.
During the meeting, al-Mujeb was expected to be presented with a 150-page dossier on the matter, which includes interviews with 45 consulate employees and phone records of Khashoggi with the consulate officers, according to an anonymous Turkish source who spoke to Al-Jazeera ahead of the meeting.
Turkey was also expected to demand another joint search at the residence of Saudi Arabia's consul general in Istanbul, the source further informed.
The reason why Turkey demands a second search is the fact that three rooms of the building were locked during the first search and also the Turkish police were not allowed to search the well located in the residence's garden.
On Oct. 15, more than a dozen members of the Turkish-Saudi team investigating the case entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. All officials from the joint investigation team have left the area on Oct. 18 after searching the Saudi consul general's official residence as well as the consulate building in Istanbul.
The source further claimed that the dossier is also supposed to be identifying four people as the primary suspects of the case, who are Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi, forensics expert Saleh al-Tubaiqi, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb and a "local collaborator." Mutreb and al-Tubaiqi are thought to be among the 15 people who arrived in Turkey the same day that Khashoggi was killed and were present at the consulate during the incident. The so-called local collaborator, on the other hand, is still yet to be identified and considered to have had the job of getting rid of the body.
On the same day of Khashoggi's disappearance, 15 other Saudis arrived in Istanbul on two private planes and visited the consulate while he was still inside, according to Turkish police sources. All of the identified individuals have since left Turkey. Ankara claims that this 15-member hit squad was sent to Istanbul to kill the journalist, a onetime Saudi insider who became an outspoken critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in columns for The Washington Post.
Although the Saudi prosecutor is also expected to present the statements of the 18 suspects that were arrested in Saudi Arabia, the source said that the possibility of sharing this information was low since the latest request of Ankara to try the suspects in Istanbul was refused by Riyadh.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia will prosecute the suspects in the murder of Khashoggi.
"On the issue of extradition, the individuals are Saudi nationals. They're detained in Saudi Arabia, and the investigation is in Saudi Arabia, and they will be prosecuted in Saudi Arabia," al-Jubeir said at a regional defense forum in the Bahraini capital.
Al-Jubeir's comments came the day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for the extradition of the Saudi nationals authorities say were involved in the murder.
