Turkey shared Khashoggi recordings with S Arabia, US

ANKARA: Turkey has shared recordings linked to the murder last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Riyadh, Washington and other capitals, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

"We gave the recordings, we gave them to Saudi Arabia, we gave them to Washington, to the Germans, to the French, to the English," he said in a televised speech.

"They listened to the conversations which took place here, they know", he said. Officials added that no written documents had been shared.

Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage.

After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in a "rogue" operation.

However, Erdogan has accused the "highest levels" of the Saudi government with ordering the hit, while some officials have pointed the finger at the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Some Turkish media and officials have said Ankara possessed an audio recording of the murder and it had shared it with the head of the CIA Gina Haspel when she visited Turkey in late October.

But the existence of such a recording has not been officially confirmed. Khashoggi’s body has never been found, more than a month after he was killed.

An advisor to Erdogan, Yasin Aktay, suggested last week that the body may have been dissolved in acid.

Erdogan was speaking before flying to Paris to attend commemorations marking the anniversary of the end of World War I.Speaking as he left Turkey to attend first world war one commemorations in France, which are being attended by the US president and European leaders, Erdogan said for the first time that the three European Union states had heard the recordings.

“We gave the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, Germans, French and British, all of them. They have listened to all the conversations in them. They know,” Erdogan said.

The CIA director, Gina Haspel, heard an audio recording of Khashoggi’s death when she visited Istanbul, two sources said last month. A senior Saudi envoy was also played a recording, a source familiar with the matter said. Saudi Arabia’s prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb has since said Khashoggi’s killing was planned in advance, although another Saudi official said Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the specific operation.