Erdogan:

'Some people paying serious money' to bury Khashoggi issue

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says "some people" are paying "serious money" to bury the issue of the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

News ID: 445772

Date: 01 July 2019 - 22:47

RNA - Khashoggi, a former advocate of the Saudi royal court who later became a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed and his body dismembered by a Saudi hit squad after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

Turkish officials were the first to report the killing of Khashoggi. They have pressed the kingdom for information on his dismembered body’s whereabouts.

Speaking to reporters after the G20 summit in Japan, Erdogan said bin Salman must uncover the killers of Khashoggi, noting that some aspects of the murder were still being hidden.

The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi was a columnist, said last November the CIA had concluded that bin Salman personally ordered his killing.

Riyadh has spurned all the allegations linking the killing to the crown prince and instead claimed that the murder had been carried out by a “rogue” group.

US plan for Middle East

Erdogan also said it was “never possible” for Turkey to positively consider the $50 billion US “peace" plan for the Middle East.

Last week, the US outlined the "economic" part of its plan for the Middle East. Critics say Washington is offering financial rewards for Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.

Erdogan also said the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey would hold a summit this month to discuss developments in Syria.

Turkey to get S-400 systems within 10 days

Turkish media on Sunday quoted Erdogan as saying that the Russian S-400 missile defense systems would be delivered within 10 days, a day after he said the US did not plan to impose sanctions on Ankara over the deal.

Turkey and the United States have been at loggerheads for months over Ankara’s purchase order for the S-400s, which the US claims are incompatible with NATO systems and the Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 stealth fighters.

Washington has given Ankara until the end of July to cancel its purchase of the Russian missile defense systems or see another deal — for the purchase of F-35s from the US — canceled.

It has also formally begun the process of expelling Turkey from the F-35 program, halting the training of Turkish pilots in the US.

But, Erdogan said on Saturday the US president had personally told him that there would be no US sanctions on Turkey over the S-400 purchase.

"Within 10 days, maybe within one week, the first shipment will have arrived. I told Trump this openly," the Hurriyet newspaper cited Erdogan as saying after a meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump.

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