TURKISH PRESIDENT RECEP Tayyip Erdogan said he was awaiting the results of an investigation into the disappearance of a Saudi journalist, after a government source said officials believed he had been killed inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate.

“I am following the (issue) and we will inform the world whatever the outcome” of the official probe, Erdogan said, following the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Riyadh and a Washington Post contributor, who has not been since since he visited the consulate on Tuesday. 

“God willing we will not be faced with a situation we do not want,” the president told reporters in Ankara, adding: “I still am hopeful.”

The Turkish head of state added that he hoped to have the results “very quickly” over the incident involving a “journalist I knew for a long time” and “friend”.

“It is very, very upsetting for us that it happened in our country,” he lamented.

Erdogan said that CCTV footage of entrances and exits at the consulate and the airport in Istanbul were being studied by the police.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate to obtain official documents in order to be able to marry his Turkish fiancee.

Late on Saturday, a government source told AFP that the police believed the journalist was killed by a team that was especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed official at the Istanbul consulate denying the reports that Khashoggi had been killed, saying the claims were “baseless”.