Turkey’s presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın on Wednesday said Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi remains inside the Saudi Consulate General in İstanbul, Reuters reported.
Kalın said Turkish authorities were in contact with Saudi officials and that he hoped the situation would be resolved.
The statement came a day after Khashoggi’s fiancée reported he had failed to emerge from a meeting in the Saudi mission.
With over 1.6 million followers on Twitter, Khashoggi is a prolific commentator in print and on television. He was famous for interviewing Osama bin Laden several times and also served as a media aide under Prince Turki al-Faisal, when the latter was director general of the Saudi intelligence agency.
He left Saudi Arabia over a year ago to live in self-exile in the US, where he spoke out against the new leadership of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
In one of his articles published last year, he said he had left the country to raise his voice. “To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot,” he wrote.
The veteran journalist had previously expressed concerns about his safety. Khashoggi told The Wall Street Journal after leaving Saudi Arabia that “it was becoming so suffocating back at home that I was beginning to fear for myself.”