Bipartisan group of senators calls for investigation into Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Tuesday that Saudi authorities have notified Ankara that they were “open to cooperation” and would allow the consulate building to be searched.

The US and the United Kingdom have both called on the Saudi government to step up its investigation into the disappearance.

Cengiz, who told CNN that she does not feel comfortable enough to give an on-camera interview, said in written answers to questions from CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Khashoggi “may have been kidnapped, abducted, or some harm may have come to him”.

Iran was exporting between 2.5 and 2.7 million bpd in April before the U.S. announced the return of sanctions.

But on Wednesday, the State Department said the USA had no advance knowledge of Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Cengiz, his fiancee, wrote in the newspaper Tuesday that Khashoggi had been “somewhat concerned that he could be in danger” when he first visited the consulate September 28, but after that visit was uneventful, seemed unconcerned when he returned last week to pick up the documents they needed to get married. Saudi Arabia, however, has been a major USA ally in the Middle East since WWII, including serving as the launching pad for the 1991 Gulf War and, most recently, as the linchpin of regime change efforts directed against Iran and Syria. “It’s a bad thing”, Trump said. She says she has not seen him since then.

“Our expectation is that in making your determination you will consider any relevant information, including with respect to the highest ranking officials in the Government of Saudi Arabia”, they said.

USA intelligence officials reportedly intercepted communications that the Saudis discussed a plan to lure and capture Khashoggi before his disappearance.

We were going to take my siblings and some of our closest friends to dinner to share the good news. “I’m not happy about this”.

“White House National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton, and White House Senior Advisor, Jared Kushner, spoke to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman yesterday about the missing Washington Post journalist”, she said on October 10. Khoshoggi disappeared upon visiting the consulate last week.

Hatice Cengiz made the appeal in an opinion piece for The Washington Post newspaper, where Khashoggi was a columnist and an outspoken critic of some of Riyadh’s policies.

President Donald Trump has also weighed in, calling the incident “a very serious situation for us and this White House”.

The New York Times cited a Turkish official who said Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents.

Writing in the American Conservative on October 9, right-wing journalist Daniel Larison was equally critical-saying, “The messages coming from the Trump Administration are scarcely better than boilerplate statements, and it shows that the administration has no interest in criticizing the Saudi government or in holding them accountable for their crime”.

The Saudi regime denies this. Among them was a forensics expert, it says. Lindsay Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is close to Trump.

Aksam newspaper also published blurred photos of a jet arriving in Istanbul before dawn on October 2, carrying what it said were nine members of the Saudi team, as well as images of some of them checking in at a hotel.

US Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday the US was ready to help in any way in the investigation.

A government source has told me President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sounding more cautious than the leaks, because if he were to echo the allegations that Mr Khashoggi was murdered, it would mean kicking out the Saudi ambassador and consul general by now.