Turkey’s president woos the Saudi crown prince

THE FIRST requirement was to sweep a murder case under the carpet. On April 7th a court in Istanbul suspended the trial of 26 Saudis accused of killing Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, in Turkey in 2018, and transferred the file back to Saudi Arabia. Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who is widely accused of ordering the murder, was never expected to answer for the crime personally—in Turkey, let alone at home in Saudi Arabia.Any hope, already slim, that the people who carried it out would be brought to justice in any jurisdiction has vanished. The way is clear for Turkey and Saudi Arabia, at loggerheads over the affair, to cosy up. On April 28th Mr Erdogan met Prince Muhammad in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The president gave the smiling prince a big hug.