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"He entered the general consulate himself and if he has entered by himself and if he did not exit it, of course this should be proven by the general consulate," Erdogan said at a press conference in Budapest.

Erdogan said the Saudi consulate should have CCTV cameras and should be able to show the video of Khashoggi leaving the building. He mentioned that there are no documents or evidence that show the journalist departing.

The Justice Ministry and the chief prosecutor in Istanbul "started an investigation and efforts are continuing," Erdogan said. Airport entrances and exits are being investigated.

"At the moment there are certain people who arrived from Saudi Arabia. And our chief investigator is investigating everything in this matter."

These are the latest developments in Turkey's probe into the disappearance of Khashoggi, a Washington Post writer and Saudi royal court insider-turned-critic. Turkish officials told several media organizations that he had been murdered inside the consulate.

Saudi Arabia has strenuously denied any involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance.

Khashoggi, who left Saudia Arabia in 2017, entered the building on Tuesday to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage while his Turkish fiance waited outside. But she says she never saw him re-emerge.

A Saudi official said Khashoggi left the consulate shortly after he visited. The Saudis did not, however, release any surveillance footage or other evidence.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called Khashoggi a "friend" he had known for some time, and vowed to personally "chase" the investigation into his disappearance.

Turkish police are also examining all the consulate's entry and exit records, from the time Khashoggi entered the building until his fiance lost contact with him.

Turkish officials: Khashoggi was killed in consulate

Four days after Khashoggi vanished, unnamed Turkish officials told the The Washington Post and Reuters that the journalist was killed inside the consulate. The officials have so far provided no evidence or details of how they arrived at this conclusion.

Yasin Aktay, a political adviser to Erdogan, told CNN on Sunday that he too believes there is a strong possibility that Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate.

"I personally think the possibility of him being killed is stronger than other possibilities, although I do not want to accept it. Because if he was alive, Saudis would provide evidence that he is alive," Aktay told CNN during a telephone interview in Istanbul.

"If he is not in the consulate and if he did not leave through the normal ways, he might have left sedated or left in pieces."

Aktay, who is also an adviser to the ruling AK Party, told CNN that said the Turkish government is not "ignoring any piece of evidence," and said the Saudis are not "sharing any convincing explanations on what happened inside the building."

Fifteen Saudi Arabian nationals -- including several officials -- arrived in Istanbul on two planes and visited the Saudi consulate there on the day Khashoggi went missing, state-run Anadolu news agency reported Saturday, citing police sources. The 15 Saudis have all since left Turkey, it added.

As demands for answers grew, Saudi officials gave journalists a tour Saturday of the six-story building in an effort to prove Khashoggi was not inside. Reuters said that a consular official showed them every room, even opening up cupboards and filing cabinets. No sign of him was found.

On Sunday, Khashoggi's family in Saudi Arabia appeared to distance themselves from media reports of his death, saying in a statement to the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel: "We trust the government and the actions taken by it and all the efforts being made in the case of Jamal Khashoggi."

Khashoggi, known in part for his interviews with terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, was a Saudi royal court insider before he left Saudi Arabia in 2017 for Washington. He began to contribute opinion pieces to The Washington Post that were critical of bin Salman's policies, including his consolidation of power. He was named a contributing writer at the Post in January.

Pressure is now mounting on the US to weigh in on the disappearance, which could have serious implications for the precarious relationship between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, already opposed over the blockade by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states against Qatar.

Two senior US administration officials told CNN on Sunday that although Washington is not commenting publicly, and has no information confirming the Turkish claims, the administration is quietly working across several agencies, seeking answers about Khashoggi's whereabouts and talking to senior Saudi officials.

Correction: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to the Saudi ambassador to Turkey.

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Erdogan: Saudi Arabia should prove missing journalist ...

ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he was closely following the case of missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi after Turkish officials said they believed he had been killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Erdogan told reporters that authorities were examining camera footage and airport records as part of their investigation into the disappearance last week of Khashoggi, who had been increasingly critical of Saudi Arabias rulers.

A former newspaper editor in Saudi Arabia and adviser to its former head of intelligence, Khashoggi left the country last year saying he feared retribution for his criticism of Saudi policy in the Yemen war and its crackdown on dissent.

On Tuesday he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents for his forthcoming marriage. Saudi officials say he left shortly afterwards but his fiancee, who was waiting outside, said he never came out.

Two Turkish sources told Reuters Turkish authorities believe Khashoggi was deliberately killed inside the consulate, a view echoed by one of Erdogans advisers, Yasin Aktay, who is also a friend of the Saudi journalist.

My sense is that he has been killed...in the consulate, Aktay said.

Erdogan said he was personally following the issue, without saying what he believed had happened to Khashoggi.

Entries and exits into the embassy, airport transits and all camera records are being looked at and followed. We want to swiftly get results, he said, adding without explanation: My expectation is still positive.

A Saudi source at the consulate denied that Khashoggi had been killed at the mission and said in a statement that the accusations were baseless. The consulate has also denied that Khashoggi was abducted.

The United States is seeking information, a State Department official said. We are not in a position to confirm these reports, but we are following them closely, the official said.

Khashoggis fiancee could not immediately be contacted but she said in a Tweet that there had been no official confirmation of the Turkish sources statements. Jamal was not killed and I do not believe he was killed, Hatice Cengiz posted.

Another Turkish security source told Reuters that a group of 15 Saudi nationals, including some officials, had arrived in Istanbul in two planes and entered the consulate on the same day Khashoggi was there, and later left the country.

The source said Turkish officials were trying to identify them. Turkeys Anadolu news agency also reported that the group of Saudis were briefly at the consulate.

Khashoggi is a familiar face on political talk shows on Arab satellite television networks and used to advise Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States and Britain.

Over the past year, he has written columns for newspapers including the Washington Post criticizing Saudi policies toward Qatar and Canada, the war in Yemen and a crackdown on dissent which has seen dozens of people detained.

I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice, he wrote in September. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.

Two months later, writing about the detentions of scores of Saudi royals, senior officials and businessmen accused of corruption, he said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dispensed selective justice and said there was complete intolerance for even mild criticism of the crown prince.

Khashoggis disappearance is likely to further deepen divisions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Relations were already strained after Turkey sent troops to the Gulf state of Qatar last year in a show of support after its Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, imposed an embargo on Doha.

Erdogan, whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam, also supported a government in Egypt led by the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi Arabia has designated a terrorist movement.

Erdogans adviser Aktay told Reuters that Turkish authorities believed the group of 15 Saudi nationals were most certainly involved in his disappearance.

The Saudis are saying we can come investigate, but they have of course disposed of the body, he said, adding that he believed Saudi statements about a lack of footage from security cameras were insincere.

Saudi Consul-General Mohammad al-Otaibi told Reuters on Saturday that the consulates own security cameras showed only a live stream and did not record footage, so they could not provide evidence of Khashoggis movements.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was alarmed by reports Khashoggi may have been killed inside the consulate.

The Saudi authorities must immediately give a full and credible accounting of what happened to Khashoggi inside its diplomatic mission, the CPJ said in a statement.

Additional reporting by Sarah Dadouch, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Dominic Evans in Istanbul, Yara Bayoumy and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Dale Hudson

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Erdogan says closely following case of missing Saudi ...

The US has lost its credibility since Donald Trump unleashed a global trade war, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, slamming Washington for sanctioning Turkey and trying to isolate Iran.

The US has embarked on a false path of solving political problems not through negotiations, but through the language of blackmail and threats, Erdogan told the Turkish parliament on Monday.

He said that Washington has lost its credibility engaging in a trade war with the world after Turkey, Russia, China, Iran and other countries were recently hit by American sanctions.

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The Turkish leader singled out the situation with Iran, saying that threats of restoring US restrictions on the country after Trump withdrew from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal in May were unfair.

Its absolutely wrong to use sanctions when all the issues can be easily solved through monitoring, carried out by the international organizations, he said, adding that restrictions against one state affect all of its neighbors in the region. He called such policy ineffective.

Its paramount for us that Iran isnt isolated from political decisions that shape the future of the region, Erdogan said.

He assured MPs that the Turkish economy is strong enough and will not to succumb to threats and attacks by the Americans.

Washington ignores the sensitivity of the Syrian issue for Ankara and continues to cooperate with terrorist organizations, the president said, referring to Kurdish militias, which were the chief US ally in fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Ankara in particular considers the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be a terrorist group. Erdogan said Turkeys goal is to completely clear northern Iraq of Kurdish armed groups.

READ MORE: Turkey will continue buying gas from Iran despite US sanctions Erdogan

Relations between the two NATO allies have been deteriorating in recent years over Washingtons harboring of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames of masterminding a failed coup in 2016.The arrest of US pastor Andrew Brunson by Turkey in relation to that uprising and Erdogans plans to buy Russian S-400 missile systems only added fuel to fire.

The low point came in August when the Trump administration slapped Turkish steel and aluminum imports with 50-percent tariffs and blacklisted the countrys ministers of justice and the interior over human rights violations in relation to the Brunson case. The restrictions saw the Turkish national currency plummet, with Ankara replying by imposing its own tariffs on 22 types of American goods worth over $533 million.

We will resolutely fight with this perverted consciousness, which tries to impose sanctions on us, justifying it by some kind of pastor, Erdogan said.

READ MORE: Arming of Kurds by US in Syria a major concern for Turkey Erdogan

Despite the strong language used, the president then expressed hope that the US leadership will sooner or later change its wrong attitude towards our country and that bilateral relations will normalize.

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should look into members of the opposition who serve on the board of Isbank, Hurriyet newspaper said on Monday, knocking the shares of the countrys largest listed lender.

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, August 14, 2018. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo

Erdogan and his aides have previously called for greater scrutiny of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) over its 28 percent stake in Isbank, bequeathed to the party by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic.

While the CHP does not receive dividends from the stake - those go to cultural associations, as stipulated by Ataturks will - party members do have seats on the banks board.

It owns 28 percent of Isbank shares. It cant get money from there but it has four board members. What do these four members do? This must be looked into, Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane returning from Azerbaijan.

Isbank shares tumbled 5.8 percent to 3.9 lira by 1254 GMT, underperforming a 0.9 percent decline in Istanbuls benchmark BIST-100 index. The Isbank sell-off weighed on banking stocks as well, with the index of bank shares dropping nearly 3 percent.

Isbank said it was too important to be made a subject of political debate, adding that trust in banks needed to be preserved for the sake of Turkeys economy.

The bank said there had been times when Ataturks 28.09 percent stake had been represented by the CHP and the Treasury, together or separately.

This does not have any impact on our banks activities or the way it does business, it said.

Since assuming a more powerful executive presidency in July, Erdogan has tightened his grip on the economy and monetary policy, appointing his son-in-law as finance minister and taking charge of the sovereign wealth fund. Fears about growing authoritarianism and the lack of central bank independence have helped send the lira down 40 percent this year.

Erdogan wants to see lower interest rates to spur lending and boost economic growth. He has repeatedly called on listed lenders to extend more credit to the real economy.

Economists say the Turkish economy is headed for a hard landing and banks are likely to see a spike in bad debt.

One of Erdogans aides, Yigit Bulut, called in 2016 for the nationalization of Isbank, after the leader of the CHP referred to the president as a tin-pot dictator.

Authorities previously seized the assets of Bank Asya, a lender started by followers of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally whom the government accuses of masterminding a failed military coup in 2016.

On Monday, the head of the CHP, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said his party did not interfere in Isbank and was holding the shares out of duty to Ataturks legacy. He speculated that Erdogan wanted to transfer the stake to Turkeys sovereign wealth fund.

Everyone needs to respect Ataturks heritage. None of our colleagues who are part of the Isbank board meddle in its banking affairs, they only carry the honor of representing Ataturks shares, he told reporters.

Does he want to transfer it to the wealth fund? This needs to be looked at.

The government started the wealth fund in 2016 to develop and increase the value of Turkeys strategic assets, and has since transferred billions of dollars of state assets to it, including stakes in flag carrier Turkish Airlines, major banks and fixed-line operator Turk Telekom.

Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones

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Turkey's Erdogan calls for investigation into opposition role ...

The White House slapped sanctions on Turkey's justice and interior ministers over the case, which has badly strained relations between Washington and Ankara, culminating in President Donald Trumps sudden decision to raise trade tariffs on Turkish steel.

Also imprisoned is NASA scientist Serkan Golge, a U.S.-Turkish citizen convicted of links to FETO that the State Department says are "without credible evidence."

The crackdown has even reached inside the U.S. mission in Ankara, where three workers are accused of links to the PKK including Hamza Ulucay, a Turkish national who worked there for more than three decades before his arrest this year.

In January, Erdogan's government created a commission to review decisions made under the state of emergency, but its members are appointed by the same authorities responsible for approving dismissals and the enforced closing of Gulen-linked schools.

In the meantime, those affected have no right to work in public service, their bank accounts are frozen, and passports confiscated, according to Human Rights Watch, which said more than 102,000 people had appealed to the commission, though it has yet to begin issuing any decisions.

Status is irrelevant in Erdogans purge.

New York Knicks center Enes Kanter, a Turkish national who has long been an outspoken critic of Erdogan, was charged in December with insulting him in a series of tweets. Prosecutors want to try Kanter in absentia and have him sentenced to more than four years in prison, if he is convicted.

Kanter wrote in Time on Tuesday that he could not go home because of his views. This month, my dad will face trial in Turkey, Kanter wrote. He is a university professor, not a terrorist. Because I play in the NBA, I am lucky enough to have a public platform, so Ive used every opportunity to make sure everyone knows about Erdogans cruelty and disdain for human rights.

Turkey is a crucial U.S. partner in the region it borders Iraq and Syria, and hosts a U.S. base at Incirlik from which strikes against ISIS have been launched.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees and who visited Brunson in jail, suggested last month that Washington should seek an alternative base in the region. Turkey is an important NATO ally but isnt acting like one, she said.

High above courtroom 29 on the sixth floor of Istanbuls giant central courthouse is a brass engraving of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the secularist founder of modern Turkey.

Directly facing him on Thursday morning was Tunca reten, attending only the third hearing since his pre-dawn arrest.

Although released from prison on bail last October, reten has yet to be cleared of the allegations against him or be committed for trial. Turkish authorities still have the laptop computers and iPhones seized from his apartment.

They even took my iPod for Gods sake, he recalls. Its just my music. What do they want with it?

reten believes his case is an act of revenge by the government after he reported the contents of hacked emails from Erdogans son-in-law, Berat Albayrak.

He was not allowed to see a lawyer until five days after his arrest, and the precise charges against him have changed at least twice; he was briefly accused of membership in a proscribed Marxist terrorist organization, DHKP.

Albayrak was energy minister in 2016 when hacked emails, circulated to a number of journalists, revealed his company was allegedly linked to the trade of oil from ISIS-held territories in northern Iraq. He is now the finance minister tasked with managing Turkeys inflation-crippled economy. Albayrak has denied the accusations, although reten's report was never officially disputed.

Of course they are doing this to punish me, reten said. At my first hearing the judge didn't even ask any questions. It is the risk we take by reporting in Turkey."

He passed his time in jail by playing chess with other inmates, and managed to avoid beatings from officers even notorious naked searches.

Each day, prisoners are required to strip to their underwear to prove they are not concealing contraband items. In an act of defiance, reten simply lowered his underwear. After I did that a couple of times they just stopped asking, he laughed.

Perhaps most cruelly of all, he was prevented from seeing his fiancee, Minez, 31; Turkish law only guarantees prison visits for spouses. Eventually the couple got married in the prison chapel. Finally, she could visit me, he said. I am so proud of her. She has been so strong through everything. She is also a journalist, so she kind of understands, but it has been so difficult for her.

Since his release, he has been able to return to work as a freelance reporter, including for an online Turkish news site, Dikem, but is banned from traveling.

His lawyers on Thursday asked a judge to lift the travel ban and return retens personal items; after a brief recess, the judge refused.

They still have my music, reten sighed.

Four decades after Alan Parkers stomach-churning Midnight Express hit American movie theaters, conditions in Turkeys prisons have improved but rights groups say beatings and abuse remain commonplace.

The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) reported in one of its studies, Suspicious Deaths and Suicides in Turkey, that there has been an increase in deaths inside Turkeys jails and detention centers. Among the recent cases is that of Sabri olak, a retired professor who was jailed reportedly because he once appeared in a television documentary about Gulen.

The State Department country report for Turkey cites a catalog of prison abuse cases "included alleged torture of detainees in official custody; allegations of forced disappearance; arbitrary arrest and detention under the state of emergency of tens of thousands, including members of parliament."

Although the Ministry of Justice did not respond directly to NBC News, it has described the country report as "one-sided" and "subjective" and said abuse allegations are always investigated. It was "pushing the limits of irony" that the U.S., which violated human rights at Guantanamo, "dares to evaluate Turkey with respect to human rights and freedoms," the ministry said.

According to figures published in an August report by the New York-based Journalists and Writers Foundation, some 44 percent of inmates in Turkey are still awaiting trial or appeal.

"Even though the state of emergency has ended," reten said, "we are still living it every day."

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