JUDY WOODRUFF: Today in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan increased the pressure
on Saudi Arabia after a prominent Saudi journalist disappeared in Istanbul.
He was last seen on Tuesday entering Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, seeking paperwork
to marry his fiancee.
Nick Schifrin reports on what might have happened to this influential writer.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Jamal Khashoggi has been a singular, solitary voice, one of the lone
Saudi journalists willing to criticize Saudi leaders.
That criticism has apparently left him silenced.
JAMAL KHASHOGGI, The Washington Post: Thank you all for coming.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Khashoggi is a Washington Post columnist and prominent former editor.
He used to be a Saudi government adviser and supported Saudi modernization efforts led
by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
JAMAL KHASHOGGI: He is doing what we demanded of him to do.
So why am I being critical?
Simply because he is doing the right things the wrong way, very wrong way.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Khashoggi criticized what he described as Mohammed bin Salman silencing
dissent.
Leading women's activists have been jailed.
Shia activists have been sentenced to death.
JAMAL KHASHOGGI: So the environment in Saudi Arabia doesn't allow for constructive criticism
or constructive debate and discourse about lively matter, matter that are going to affect
us for the future.
NICK SCHIFRIN: In Istanbul, Khashoggi's supporters protested outside the Saudi Consulate, where
Turkish officials say he was murdered, his body dismembered and flown out of the country.
Saudi's Istanbul consul general, Mohammad al-Otaibi, gave a tour of the consulate to
try and prove Khashoggi had come and gone safely.
MOHAMMAD AL-OTAIBI, Saudi Istanbul Consul General (through translator): Jamal is not
at the consulate, nor in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
And the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him.
We are worried about his case.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But, today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that denial wasn't
enough.
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkish President (through translator): The consulate officials can't
save themselves by saying he left here.
The relevant authorities are obligated to provide proof of this claim.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, President Trump offered his first comments about Khashoggi when asked
by a reporter.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I am concerned about it.
I don't like hearing about it.
And, hopefully, that will sort itself out.
Right now, nobody knows anything about it.
But there are some pretty bad stories going around.
I do not like it.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Khashoggi never considered himself the opposition, only someone with
faith in his country and in freedom.
In The Washington Post this weekend, a blank space where Khashoggi's column would have
been.
The headline, "A Missing Voice."
And joining me now is Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post editorial page editor.
Thank you very much.
What about his voice has been so vital?
And what about his voice drew you to him initially?
FRED HIATT, Editorial Page Editor, The Washington Post: He's a unique voice, I think, because
of -- he really knows Saudi Arabia.
He
He -- as you know, he's been a journalist there for a long time.
He was somebody who knows the people who run the country, as well as the ordinary folks.
And he's a real patriot who wrote from the point of view of wanting the regime in Saudi
Arabia to do the right thing.
And I think what made him unusual was, he was willing to take these risks for himself,
including leaving the country and going into exile and being a truth-teller, because he
had hopes that Saudi Arabia might really move in the right direction.
I should say, he has hopes that Saudi Arabia might move in the right direction.
And he was trying to kind of be a positive voice pushing them in that direction.
NICK SCHIFRIN: You referred to the risks that he took.
Did he express concern for his safety?
FRED HIATT: I don't think anybody expected something like the worst of what is being
speculated now.
But I think, when he left the country more than a year ago, he said: There are a lot
of people in Saudi Arabia who can't speak the truth, they're in jail, or they're being
muzzled.
I have the opportunity, if I give everything up in my country, to go out and continue to
speak the truth.
I think he knew that put potentially relatives at risk.
It put -- no exile feels completely sanguine.
But, at the same time, I don't think anybody would have expected something like what we're
most afraid of now.
NICK SCHIFRIN: I spoke with the State Department earlier.
And all they would say is that, "We are closely following the situation."
Is the U.S. doing enough?
FRED HIATT: I think -- you know, Jamal Khashoggi was a resident of the United States.
He was a columnist for The Washington Post.
That puts the United States government in a position to have both the basis and the
obligation to demand answers.
If it is true -- and we continue to hope beyond hope that it's not true -- if it is true that
a foreign government lured one of its citizens into one of its diplomatic properties on foreign
soil, and then had him murdered, it's unprecedented in modern times.
We have never seen anything like that.
And there's no way, it seems to me, that Congress or an American administration could just go
back to normal relations with a country that would do that.
So, the administration and Congress, in our view, should be asking for answers and asking
for information, and doing it a lot more loudly and insistently than what we have heard so
far.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post, thank you very much.
FRED HIATT: Thank you.
NICK SCHIFRIN: And joining me now is Robin Wright.
She writes for "The New Yorker" magazine and is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Robin Wright, thank you very much for joining us.
You just heard Fred Hiatt describe how there shouldn't be a normal U.S.-Saudi relationship
if this incident turns out to be true.
And we have heard bipartisan outrage from multiple senators from multiple sides of the
ideological spectrum saying that there should be a break in U.S.-Saudi relations if this
is true.
So, is that possible?
Is a kind of break between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia possible?
ROBIN WRIGHT, "The New Yorker": I doubt it.
The fact is, Saudi Arabia is central to the Trump administration's policy in the Middle
East.
Saudi Arabia was his first destination as president.
There was enormous pomp and ceremony when he arrived.
Saudi Arabia is central to his attempt at a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is central to his counterterrorism program.
His own son-in-law, who is his chief adviser on the Middle East, is a very close personal
friend of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, who is allegedly linked to the fate of this
wonderful Saudi critic and my longtime friend, Jamal.
So the prospects of this changing anything, I think, are unlikely.
The bigger question in some ways for Saudi Arabia is, what impact does this have on foreign
businesses looking to or had been thinking about investing in the kingdom?
That kind of big-time money is essential to the crown prince's ambitious plans to develop
the kingdom, to diversify the economy beyond the oil.
And there may be some who will wonder about the legitimacy, the commitment of the crown
prince to genuine reforms, given his track record since taking over last year.
NICK SCHIFRIN: So, given his need for some of those reforms, given his need for Western
investment, what does this say about Saudi priorities under Mohammed bin Salman?
ROBIN WRIGHT: I think Mohammed bin Salman has been proven to be quite ruthless when
it comes to silencing his critics.
He talks about reforms for women, and then he turns around, after giving them the right
to drive, and arresting some of those who had been the most vocal on women's rights.
And one of them was recently sentenced to death.
There are those who were the moderate clerics condemning and speaking out against Sunni
extremism or Islamic extremism.
Some of those, many of those have been picked up, and some of those have been sentenced
to death.
And it's clear that there -- as Jamal had often said, there is, under the current leadership,
very little, if any room for criticism or questioning.
NICK SCHIFRIN: And, very quickly, Robin Wright, President Trump has criticized journalists.
He has praised authoritarians.
Does that kind of talk have any impact on this event that we're talking about today?
ROBIN WRIGHT: I think the idea -- human rights has generally not been very important in the
Trump administration, and hasn't spoken out, made it an important part of its foreign policy.
The fact that this is a journalist criticizing a country and a leadership very close to the
Trump administration, I doubt it'll produce any kind of immediate impact or significant
impact.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Robin Wright, thank you very much.
ROBIN WRIGHT: Thank you.