The Tribune

Early this month, a 59-year-old Saudi Arabian journalist walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, presumably to pick up documentary evidence of the dissolution of his previous marriage. Jamal Khashoggi was planning to marry again and friends said the normally sombre Khashoggi was uncharacteristically ebullient.

In recent years, Khashoggi had evolved from a trusted Saudi royal family insider to an increasingly strident and outspoken dissident who with growing vehemence began to criticise the House of Saud in occasional columns for the Washington Post and other publications.

No one has seen Khashoggi since October 2, the day he entered the Saudi consulate building.

In what appears to be a supreme irony, the Turkish government of Executive President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been promoting the narrative that a squad of elite Saudi hit men killed Khashoggi, dismembered his body and smuggled it out of the consulate and perhaps out of the country in several heavy plastic sacks. The alleged assassins then reportedly flew out of Turkey in private Saudi government jets on the following day.

There are a lot of implications from all of this. Take first the ironic part. Turkey, now the loud champion of a journalistic victim, has reportedly been the world’s leader in imprisoning journalists for the past two years. Under the increasingly repressive Erdogan, any form of dissent in Turkey has been firmly squashed, especially since a failed coup five years ago.

Journalists worldwide have faced increasing danger in recent years. Before Khashoggi’s apparent demise, the most recent victim was a television personality and investigative journalist in Bulgaria, who was reportedly raped before being killed, perhaps by operatives of a Bulgarian government regarded as one of the most corrupt and autocratic in Eastern Europe. Bulgaria is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Turkey itself is a NATO member that has been negotiating for membership in the EU for 13 years. While it has not often been in recent headlines, Turkey is experiencing a return to geopolitical prominence. Though its position at the European gateway to Asia perhaps lacks the significance of a century ago, Turkey’s eastern and southeastern borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria compel its engagement in the ongoing Syrian civil war with all its regional implications.

Turkey’s eastern engagements also spotlight its 40-year effort to suppress the intermittent but ongoing Kurdish resistance to Ankara’s authority. The Kurds, whose territory spreads from eastern Turkey into Iran and especially Iraq, remain an irreducible element in continuing instability and turmoil in the region. Erdogan has been relentless in his efforts to reduce the influence of the Kurds and their PKK party in Turkey.

Erdogan rose to prominence in Turkish politics in 1994 when he was elected mayor of Istanbul. He enjoyed a nearly four-year tenure in that post and compiled an objectively impressive list of accomplishments ranging from improved drinking water to significant traffic relief in Turkey’s largest city.

Erdogan was briefly imprisoned for political dissent by a previous Turkish regime, but returned to national renown in 2002 as prime minister and has by some accounts been running Turkey ever since. To describe Erdogan’s foreign relations as mercurial may be an understatement. He has changed course with the United States, the EU, Russia, Israel and many other countries as Turkish leader.

Now with the Khashoggi incident, Turkey has an opportunity to poke a stick at a frequent regional foe, Saudi Arabia. In doing so, Erdogan will bring smiles to neighbours and allies Iran and Pakistan, in addition to important political factions in Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan will also probably relish an opportunity to tweak the United States, whose close and sometimes unhealthy ties to Saudi Arabia and its rulers have been well documented for decades. The Khashoggi affair has led to refreshed American reporting on Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, presumed heir to the Saudi throne and social acquaintance of significant American politicians from John Kerry to Jared Kushner. If Turkey’s allegations about Khashoggi’s demise are true, it is presumed the Saudi crown prince was involved.

The growing controversy over Khashoggi adds yet another unstable element to the fragile alchemy of the Middle East. It’s a story that won’t end well.