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ISTANBUL — Investigators are examining the movements of Saudi officials who flew to Istanbul and went to the Saudi Consulate there on the same day that a Saudi dissident journalist disappeared after going to the building, the Turkish authorities said on Tuesday.
Turkish officials have said that investigators believe the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was killed and dismembered at the consulate after going there last Tuesday to pick up a document. The Saudi government has denied those claims.
The Turkish authorities were also looking into the possibility that Mr. Khashoggi had been abducted with the help of another country’s intelligence officers and that he could still be alive, the daily newspaper Sabah, which is close to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reported on Tuesday.
Saudi officials have agreed to allow Turkish investigators to conduct a search at the consulate, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, but the ministry did not offer any information about the timing, nature or extent of such a search.
The Saudi officials who flew to Turkey on the day that Mr. Khashoggi disappeared left the country hours later. Details of their visit were reported at length in Sabah, in an article by two reporters known for their sources in the intelligence and security services.
Two government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the broad outlines of the Sabah report, but said they could not confirm all of its details.
The leaks to Turkish news media seemed aimed at maintaining diplomatic pressure on the Saudi government to explain Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance. Mr. Erdogan called on Monday evening for an explanation, in comments to reporters during a visit to Hungary.
The international community has added to that pressure this week. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he was “deeply troubled” by reports about what had happened to Mr. Khashoggi.
And on Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office called for Saudi Arabia and Turkey to conduct a thorough investigation into the disappearance, and to make the results public.
“This is of serious concern, the apparent enforced disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
The Sabah newspaper reported that, “Two Gulfstream IV-type private planes took off from Riyadh on Oct. 2 and landed at Ataturk Airport; one of them before Khashoggi entered the consulate, the other one after he entered.” The report added that the two jets belonged to Sky Prime Aviation Services, a charter company based in Riyadh that has long worked with the Saudi government.
The newspaper reported that one jet, with tail numberHZ-SK2, landed at Ataturk Airport, which serves Istanbul, at 3:13 a.m. that day, hours before Mr. Khashoggi entered the consulate just after 1 p.m.
The second plane, with tail number HZ-SK1, landed at Ataturk Airport at 5:15 p.m. on the same day, and then took off barely an hour later, at 6:20 p.m., the newspaper reported, adding that the vessel flew to Egypt and, the next day, back to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
The jet that had arrived earlier left Istanbul at 10:46 p.m. on Oct. 2, flying to Dubai and then to Riyadh, according to the newspaper. The people who had arrived on that plane checked into two hotels near the Saudi Consulate, booking rooms for three nights, but they retrieved their belongings and left the same day, Sabah reported.
The group in the second plane went directly to the consulate and then back to the airport.
Sabah reported that it had obtained passenger lists for both aircraft. It did not publish the names, but it said they were Saudi officials and intelligence officers. There were nine passengers on the first plane and six on the second, and a total of seven crew members on both jets, the newspaper reported.
The Turkish police were examining recordings taken by security cameras, including around the hotel, and were investigating vehicles that entered and exited the consulate on the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared. Some of those vehicles, which have diplomatic license plates, also entered and exited the residence of the consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, which is about 200 yards from the consulate, the newspaper reported.
According to Sabah, Turkish employees of the Saudi consul’s residence were told, unexpectedly, not to report for work on Oct. 2.
Two and a half hours after Mr. Khashoggi had entered the consulate, six vehicles left, carrying 15 Saudi officials and intelligence officers, the newspaper reported. Another vehicle, a black Mercedes Vito van with darkened windows, and a second vehicle went to the consul’s residence on Meseli Street and stayed there for four hours.
Investigators suspect that Mr. Khashoggi was in the van, Sabah reported.
Another pro-government Turkish newspaper,Star, reported that the police believe that Mr. Khashoggi’s body was taken out of the consulate in a diplomatic vehicle with darkened windows.
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