Alwaght- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit Saudi Arabia later this week after years of tensions in relations between the two countries over the 2018 gruesome killing of prominent dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Three sources familiar with the trip, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the visit was planned for Thursday, but scheduling issues could delay it to next month.
The development comes as a Turkish court ruled earlier this month to suspend the trial in absentia of 26 Saudis accused in the killing of Khashoggi and for the case to be transferred to Saudi Arabia.
The 59-year-old Washington Post columnist was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.
Earlier, a Turkish prosecutor had called for the trial in absentia to be transferred to Saudi authorities.
Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag then said the government would approve the request.
The Ankara-Riyadh relations worsened significantly after Khashoggi’s killing, but Turkey has since sought to mend ties with Saudi Arabia as part of efforts to bolster its economy.
The murder and subsequent accusations strained ties between Istanbul and Riyadh and led to an unofficial Saudi boycott of Turkish goods, which cut Ankara’s exports to Riyadh by 90 percent.
“For MBS, it’s all about Khashoggi. He is obsessed by it. It’s personal,” one source, who is familiar with the talks between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, said, referring to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“He blames Erdogan personally for getting America involved, and for not closing the affair down within the first few days,” the source added.
A senior Turkish official with knowledge of the negotiations said earlier this year that Riyadh has become more serious about repairing ties with Ankara after Erdogan met Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed last November.
Turkey and the UAE repaired ties last year after nearly 10 years. The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported at the time that the two countries signed 13 agreements including on defense, trade, climate change, industry, and the economy.
“We approached them in the past but they weren’t serious,” the official said. “This time they approached us. The Saudis felt like they have been getting excluded in this regional reconciliation. They would like to be a part of it.”
In addition to the Turkish case, there remains a second lawsuit in a US federal court filed by Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, and the US-based advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), which Khashoggi established and ran before his death.
This lawsuit, Turkish officials argue, is beyond their reach.
Khashoggi was murdered four years ago, when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document stating that he was divorced so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée.
Recording and other evidence gathered by Turkish authorities revealed how a team of Saudi agents subdued, killed, and then dismembered the journalist inside the diplomatic mission.
Saudi Arabia initially issued conflicting stories about Khashoggi’s disappearance, but eventually said that he was killed in a “rogue” operation.
A US intelligence report released a year ago confirmed that MBS had approved the operation to kill or capture Khashoggi, but the Riyadh regime has denied any involvement by the 36-year-old prince.
