After Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared, Turkish officials said privately that they knew exactly what happened to him: he'd been murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, dismembered and his body moved out in boxes.
Two weeks later, they've yet to go public or release conclusive evidence.
Even as Washington and Riyadh threaten penalties against each other in the case of the missing Washington Post columnist, a prominent critic of his country's rulers, there seems to be little appetite behind the scenes to push for confrontation. How the dice roll may ultimately fall to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who can either try to link the prince — a favorite of President Donald Trump — to an alleged murder, or defuse a face-off that all three countries might find more convenient to avoid.