"Saudi Arabia has confirmed the death of missing Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, claiming he died in a fistfight involving more than a dozen Saudi officials at the country's consulate in Istanbul," CNN reported.

An announcement carried on Saudi state TV said discussions between Khashoggi and officials at the consulate quickly turned violent, and ended in his death, the American news channel reported.

As per a BBC report, US President Donald Trump said what happened was "unacceptable" but Saudi Arabia was a "great ally".

Jamal Khashoggi has been missing for the past couple of weeks. 

In a statement released on Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that he is “deeply troubled” by the reported confirmation of the death of Jamal Khashoggi.

A tweet posted by the Saudi Foreign Ministry on Friday states that the missing Saudi journalist, a columnist with the Washington Post newspaper, was killed, claims reportedly echoed on Saudi State TV.

The tweet says that “discussions that took place with the citizen Jamal Khashoggi during his presence in the Consulate of the Kingdom in Istanbul…did not go as required and escalated negatively which led to a fight…which aggregated the situation and led to his death.”

The Secretary-General extended his condolences to Mr. Khashoggi’s family and friends and stressed the need for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Khashoggi’s death and full accountability for those responsible.

Guterres’s comments are the latest in a chorus of concern and condemnation over Khashoggi’s disappearance from UN officials and independent UN human rights experts.

Over the last few days, statements regarding the Khashoggi disappearance have been released by the offices of UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, the Chair of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, Bernard Duhaime, and the Chair of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, Dante Pesce. 

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