Turkey vows 'nothing will remain secret' in Khashoggi murder case

Turkey vowed that nothing will stay secret in the case of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul, adding it did not want relations with Riyadh to be damaged, reports said on Friday.

"From the start, the line of our President (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) has been clear. Nothing will remain secret in this case," presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara.

"Saudi Arabia is for us an important country, a brotherly and friendly country. We have many partnerships and we would not want these to be damaged. Consequently, there is a great responsibility on the Saudi authorities to shed light on the case,” he added.

After a fortnight of denials, Saudi authorities admitted on Saturday that Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Prince Mohammed, was killed after entering the consulate in Turkey.

Riyadh insisted that Khashoggi had left the consulate but failed to produce evidence of the false claim.

Riyadh is now facing a growing chorus of incredulity over its belated explanation that Khashoggi died in a "brawl", as world powers demand answers and the whereabouts of his body.

Turkey's ruling party spokesman said on Monday that the murder of Khashoggi inside Riyadh's Istanbul consulate was "savagely planned”, the first official indication from Ankara it believes a plot was hatched in advance.

This was extremely savagely planned, and we are faced with a situation where there has been a lot of effort to whitewash this," Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Omer Celik told reporters in Ankara.

"This is a very complicated murder," Celik said, warning that the Turkish government would not be drawn into speculation. "Everyone (else) can speculate but we cannot speculate," Celik added.

He also dismissed claims of "bargaining" between Saudi Arabia and Turkey as “immoral".

An adviser to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday joined the chorus of criticism surrounding Riyadh's narrative of Khashoggi's death, suggesting it "mocked" world opinion.

"One cannot help but wonder how there could have been a 'fistfight' between 15 young expert fighters ... and a 60-year-old Khashoggi, alone and defenceless," Yasin Aktay wrote in the Yeni Safak newspaper.

"The 'fistfight' argument regarding Khashoggi's death is a scenario which was hastily made up, as it became clear that all the details of the incident will soon come out," he added.

Turkish police on Monday said they had found an abandoned diplomatic car in a private Istanbul car park.

The Mercedes matches a car seen outside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Hurriyet reported.

Turkish police require Saudi Arabia's permission to search the vehicle, and a request has been made to the consulate general.