Tag Archives: Istanbul

Saudi king orders Khashoggi probe, Trump sends Pompeo to discuss case

A car with a diplomatic registration plate arrives at Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 15, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Tulay Karadeniz and Yara Bayoumy

ANKARA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Monday ordered an internal probe into the unexplained disappearance of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a joint Turkish-Saudi team was set to search the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was last seen on Oct. 2.

U.S. President Donald Trump said meanwhile he had spoken with King Salman about Khashoggi, a critic of the kingdom’s policies, and that he was sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet the king immediately.

FILE PHOTO: Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London Britain, September 29, 2018. Middle East Monitor/Handout via REUTERS.

FILE PHOTO: Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London Britain, September 29, 2018. Middle East Monitor/Handout via REUTERS.

Trump also said Salman denied “any knowledge of whatever may have happened” to Khashoggi, who disappeared after he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago, and told him the Saudis are working closely with Turkey on the case.

Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, vanished after entering the consulate to get marriage documents. Turkish officials have said authorities believe he was murdered and his body removed, allegations that Saudi Arabia has denied.

The case has provoked an international outcry, with Trump threatening “severe punishment” if it turns out Khashoggi was killed in the consulate and European allies urging “a credible investigation” and accountability for those responsible.

A Turkish diplomatic source said investigators would inspect the consulate on Monday afternoon, after delays last week when Turkey accepted a Saudi proposal to work together to find out what happened to Khashoggi.

“The King has ordered the Public Prosecutor to open an internal investigation into the Khashoggi matter based on the info from the joint team in Istanbul,” a Saudi official, not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters.

Asked when the public prosecutor could make an announcement about the investigation, the official said: “He was instructed to work quickly.”

A man holds a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as media members film during a protest outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 8, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

A man holds a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as media members film during a protest outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 8, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Britain expects Riyadh to provide “a complete and detailed response” to questions over Khashoggi’s disappearance, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman said on Monday.

Saudi Arabia has responded to Western statements by saying it would retaliate against any pressure or economic sanctions “with greater action”, and Arab allies rallied to support it, setting up a potential showdown between the world’s top oil exporter and its main Western allies.

King Salman and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone on Sunday evening and stressed the importance of the two countries creating a joint group as part of the probe.

Broadcaster CNN Turk reported on Monday that the Saudi team had arrived at Istanbul police headquarters.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

The Saudi riyal fell to its lowest in two years and its international bond prices slipped over fears that foreign investment inflows could shrink amid international pressure.

The Saudi stock market had tumbled 7.2 percent over the previous two trading days but rebounded 2 percent on Monday.

Foreign capital is key to Saudi plans for economic diversification and job creation.

But concern over the disappearance has seen media organizations and a growing number of attendees pull out of a “Davos in the Desert” investment conference set for Oct. 23-25, which has become the biggest show for investors to promote Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reform vision.

On Monday, a source familiar with the matter said Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink were pulling out of the summit. Both companies declined comment.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which hosts the conference, has tentatively committed $20 billion to an infrastructure investment planned with Blackstone Group. Prince Mohammed told Reuters last year that Blackstone and BlackRock Inc were planning to open offices in the kingdom.

Bahrain called for a boycott of Uber, in which PIF has invested $3.5 billion after its chief executive officer said he would not attend the conference.

PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE

Similar campaigns trended on social media in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. UAE businessman Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor urged a boycott of Virgin, which has suspended discussions with PIF over a planned $1 billion investment.

Khashoggi, a familiar face on Arab talk shows, moved to the United States last year fearing retribution for his criticism of Prince Mohammed, who has cracked down on dissent with arrests.

The former newspaper editor once interviewed Osama bin Laden and later became a consummate insider, advising former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal when he served as ambassador in London and Washington.

A pro-government Turkish daily published preliminary evidence last week from investigators it said identified a 15-member Saudi intelligence team which arrived in Istanbul on diplomatic passports hours before Khashoggi disappeared.

The Saudi consulate referred Reuters to authorities in Riyadh who did not respond to questions about the 15 Saudis.

(Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, Rob Cox of Breakingviews, William James in London; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by David Dolan, William Maclean)

Erdogan says Turkey will boycott U.S. electronics, lira steadies

Businessmen holding U.S. dollars stand in front of a currency exchange office in response to the call of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Turks to sell their dollar and euro savings to support the lira, in Ankara, Turkey August 14, 2018. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Daren Butler and Behiye Selin Taner

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey would boycott electronic products from the United States, retaliating in a row with Washington that helped drive the lira to record lows.

The lira has lost more than 40 percent this year and crashed to an all-time low of 7.24 to the dollar on Monday, hit by worries over Erdogan’s calls for lower borrowing costs and worsening ties with the United States.

The lira’s weakness has rippled through global markets. Its drop of as much as 18 percent on Friday hit European and U.S. stocks as investors fretted about banks’ exposure to Turkey.

On Tuesday the lira recovered some ground, trading at 6.4000 to the dollar at 1751 GMT, up almost eight percent from the previous day’s close and having earlier touched 6.2995.

It was supported by news of a planned conference call in which the finance minister will seek to reassure investors concerned by Erdogan’s influence over the economy and his resistance to interest rate hikes to tackle double-digit inflation.

Erdogan says Turkey is the target of an economic war and has made repeated calls for Turks to sell their dollars and euros to shore up the national currency.

“Together with our people, we will stand decisively against the dollar, forex prices, inflation and interest rates. We will protect our economic independence by being tight-knit together,” he told members of his AK Party in a speech.

The United States has imposed sanctions on two Turkish ministers over the trial on terrorism charges of a U.S. evangelical pastor in Turkey, and last week Washington raised tariffs on Turkish metal exports.

It was unclear whether Erdogan’s call was widely heeded, but a Turkish news agency said traders in Istanbul’s historic Eminonu district converted $100,000 into lira on Tuesday.

Chanting “Damn America”, they unfurled a banner saying “we will win the economic war”, the Demiroren agency said. Amid calls to “burn” the dollars, the group headed to a bank branch where they converted the money, it said.

Erdogan also said Turkey was boycotting U.S. electronic products. “If they have iPhones, there is Samsung on the other side, and we have our own Vestel here,” he said, referring to the Turkish electronics company, whose shares rose 5 percent.

His call met a mixed response on Istanbul streets.

“We supported him with our lives on July 15,” shopkeeper Arif Simsek said, referring to a failed 2016 military coup. “And now we will support him with our goods. We will support him until the end.”

But shopkeeper Umit Yilmaz scoffed. “I have a 16-year-old daughter. See if you can take her iPhone away … All these people are supposed to not buy iPhones now? This can’t be.”

INVESTMENT INCENTIVES

Erdogan said his government would offer further incentives to companies planning to invest in Turkey and said firms should not be put off by economic uncertainty.

“If we postpone our investments, if we convert our currency to foreign exchange because there’s danger, then we will have given into the enemy,” he said.

Although the lira gained some respite on Tuesday, investors say measures taken by the Central Bank on Monday to ensure liquidity failed to address the root cause of lira weakness.

“What you want to see is tight monetary policy, a tight fiscal policy and a recognition that there might be some short-term economic pain — but without it there’s just no credibility of promises to restabilize things,” said Craig Botham, Emerging Markets Economist at Schroders.

Dollar-denominated bonds issued by selected Turkish banks continued to fall on Tuesday, although sovereign bonds steadied.

Relations between NATO allies Turkey and the United States are at a low point, hurt by a series of issues from diverging interests in Syria, Ankara’s plan to buy Russian defense systems and the detention of pastor Andrew Brunson.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton on Monday met Turkey’s ambassador to the United States to discuss Brunson’s detention. Following the meeting, U.S. officials have given no indication that the United States has been prepared to give ground in the standoff between the two countries’ leaders.

Ankara has repeatedly said the case was up to the courts and a Turkish judge moved Brunson from jail to house arrest in July. Infuriated by the move, Trump placed sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubled tariffs on metal imports, adding to the lira’s slide.

Brunson’s lawyer said on Tuesday he had launched a fresh appeal to a Turkish court for the pastor’s release.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay and Ezgi Erkoyun, Writing by Humeyra Pamuk and Dominic Evans, Editing by William Maclean and Jon Boyle)

Erdogan’s ‘crazy’ canal alarms villagers and environmentalists

A general view shows the village of Sazlibosna in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Ali Kucukgocmen

SAZLIBOSNA, Turkey (Reuters) – When residents of Sazlibosna, a village near Istanbul, tried to attend a public meeting about the Turkish government’s plan to dig a 400 metre-wide canal through their farmlands, they were stopped by police.

The 45 km (28 mile) Kanal Istanbul will link the seas north and south of Istanbul and ease traffic on the Bosphorus strait, a major global shipping lane. It will also redraw the map of one of Europe’s biggest cities, turning its western side into an island.

Critics, including the national architects association, have questioned the need for the canal and warned it will destroy an 8,500-year-old archaeological site near Istanbul and cause widespread environmental damage.

Real estate agent Murat Ozcelik talks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Kayabasi district in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

Real estate agent Murat Ozcelik talks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Kayabasi district in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

The experience of the Sazlibosna villagers illustrates how the government has shut them out of an enterprise that could displace thousands. Estimated to cost around $16 billion, the canal is one of the most ambitious of President Tayyip Erdogan’s infrastructure mega-schemes. He has publicly referred to it as his “crazy project”.

When the villagers, who described themselves as Erdogan supporters, arrived for the meeting in March in western Istanbul – a session intended to allow the public to voice concerns and learn about the project – they were met by police carrying rifles and tear gas who said the hall was full.

It was – with workers who told Reuters they had been bussed in from another government mega-project. The villagers were stuck outside the hearing, in a crowd of more than a hundred people, including environmentalists, who were also not let in.

“The owners of these lands need to be inside,” said Oktay Teke, Sazlibosna’s local administrator, as he stood with the villagers outside the Arnavutkoy municipal building where the meeting was underway.

“If land is going to be expropriated, it will be our land – we will lose our homes.”

A Reuters reporter saw dozens of men leave the hall and board buses after the meeting. When approached, three said they were workers from Istanbul’s giant new airport, which opens in October at the northern end of the planned canal.

“Projects at the airport are about to be finished. This (canal) is a job opportunity for us,” one said, without giving his name.

The spokesman for the Arnavutkoy municipality, Fatih Sanlav, said only a limited number of people were unable to enter the meeting, and no workers were bussed in to fill the hall.

ERDOGAN’S PROJECTS

In a decade and a half in power, Erdogan and his ruling AK Party have built roads, trains and hospitals and improved the lives of millions of lower-income, pious Turks. Under a state of emergency in effect since after a 2016 coup attempt, he has also overseen a sweeping crackdown against opponents.

Erdogan says the canal will take the pressure off the Bosphorus and prevent accidents there. He says “mega-projects”, such as Istanbul’s third airport, are major contributors to the economy.

Yet there is concern about overdevelopment. A protest in 2013 against plans to redevelop Istanbul’s Gezi park turned into a major anti-government uprising.

The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) criticized the canal as an environmental and urban “disaster” which should be abandoned.

Some 369,000 people live in the area that could be impacted by the canal, according to the Turkish Data Analysis Centre, a research company.

The canal will destroy archaeological sites around the Kucukcekmece lagoon that date back to 6,500 BC and provide the earliest evidence of the Hittites in Thrace, TMMOB said. The lagoon’s ecosystem, vital for marine animals and migratory birds, will also be destroyed.

The canal will demolish two basins that provide nearly a third of Istanbul’s fresh water and will increase the salinity of underground water streams, affecting agricultural land as far away as the neighboring Thrace region, TMMOB said.

The project will increase oxygen levels in the Black Sea, impacting the wildlife population, it said.

Three groups of artificial islands will be built just offshore in the Sea of Marmara from the earth dug for the canal, which environmentalists say will cause pollution there.

The Environment Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Transport Ministry and Cinar Engineering, the company tasked with compiling an environmental impact report, declined to comment.

While the Bosphorus is difficult to navigate, shipping companies do not need a new canal, said Cihangir Inanc of shipping agent GAC Shipping, adding it would be “more realistic” for the government to improve the strait.

Nearly 43,000 ships passed through the Bosphorus in 2017, down a quarter from a decade ago, although ships today are much bigger, according to government data. Traffic on the Bosphorus was nearly three times that of the Suez Canal.

GREEN HILLS

On the banks of Sazlidere dam, Sazlibosna is surrounded by rolling hills and green fields of grazing sheep and cattle. The canal will cut through that land, as well as land around nearly two dozen different villages and neighborhoods.

At the local tea house, villagers fear the government will compulsorily purchase land that has been in their families for generations and pay less than the market value.

Their concerns are fueled by a similar experience 20 years ago, when the government expropriated land to build the dam, paying below market value and devastating local farms.

“We had around 3,000 cattle then, we have 300 now,” Teke, the administrator, said.

Villagers fear the canal will destroy what remains of their agricultural land.

“Once this happens, there won’t be any husbandry or farming left. I’m going to have to stop farming, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said one villager, who grows barley, wheat, maize and sunflowers.

Teke said he wrote to Erdogan, the prime minister, and to government offices asking for more information about what will happen, but to no avail.

Erdogan has promised to hold the tender for the canal soon, saying it will be built no matter what.

“Whether they want it or not, we will build Kanal Istanbul,” he said.

(Editing by David Dolan and Giles Elgood)

After four months jail, Turkey’s Amnesty director says trial is ‘surreal’

Idil Eser, the director of Amnesty in Turkey, poses during an interview with Reuters in Istanbul, Turkey, October 31, 2017.

By Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Amnesty International’s Turkey director, freed from four months detention but still facing trial on terrorism charges, said the case against her and other human rights activists was “absurd and surreal”.

Idil Eser was one of eight activists freed last week on bail, in a case which has become a flash-point in Turkey’s tense relations with Europe. Their trial has brought condemnation from rights groups and some Western governments concerned by what they see as creeping authoritarianism in the NATO member state.

The activists were detained by police in July as they attended a workshop on digital security and information management on an island near Istanbul.

The charge against them, of aiding a terrorist organization, is similar to those leveled against tens of thousands of Turks detained since a failed military coup by rogue soldiers in July 2016, in which at least 240 people were killed.

“I cannot even find words to describe the absurdity, the surreality of the situation. It’s total nonsense,” Eser said when asked about the charges. She was speaking to Reuters in her first interview since being released.

Turkey rejects foreign criticism of the trials and says its judiciary operates independently of the government.

“Turkey is a state of law and our judges are independent and impartial,” Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters earlier this week when asked about the case.

At the time of the activists’ detention, President Tayyip Erdogan said the eight had gathered on the island for a meeting “that might be considered as a follow-up” to last year’s failed coup, which he has cast as part of a foreign-backed plot.

Erdogan was quoted by several Turkish newspapers on Thursday as telling reporters on his plane that the judiciary was acting independently in the case. “We cannot know how the court will rule in the end,” the Hurriyet newspaper quoted him as saying.

 

JAIL SENTENCES

The indictment also brought charges against Swedish national Ali Gharavi and Peter Steudtner, a German, prompting an angry response from Berlin, which threatened to put curbs on economic investment in Turkey and said it was reviewing arms projects.

The day after their release last week, Steudtner and Gharavi left Turkey, but the trial continues on Nov. 22. Prosecutors have sought jail sentences of up to 15 years for all of the defendants.

Steudtner and Gharavi told the court during the trial that they were shocked by the allegations against them. They could not immediately be reached for further comment.

Authorities have jailed more than 50,000 people pending trial in a crackdown following the abortive coup. Erdogan says the purges across society are necessary to maintain stability in Turkey, a NATO member state bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria.

European allies fear he is using the investigations to check opposition and undermine the judiciary.

Eser said her time in jail had marked a turning point in her life. Less than a week after her release, the 54-year-old made an appointment at a tattoo parlor in central Istanbul.

“With other defendants, we had decided to go to a Turkish bath when we got out, and the other decision was to get a tattoo,” she said. “So I started right away.”

 

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun; Editing by Dominic Evans and Nick Tattersall)

 

Ankara mayor quits in Erdogan purge of local government

Turkey's ruling AK Party (AKP) mayoral candidate and current Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek (C) attends an event as part of his election campaign in Ankara March 18, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – The mayor of Ankara said on Monday he will step down this week, the fifth mayor from the ruling party to quit in recent weeks in the face of demands for a purge of local politics by President Tayyip Erdogan.

Melih Gokcek, a staunch Erdogan loyalist who has been mayor of Ankara for 23 years and won five consecutive elections, said on Twitter on Monday that he would leave office on Saturday, after meeting with Erdogan at the presidential palace.

Four other mayors from the ruling party have already stepped down in recent weeks, including Istanbul’s Mayor Kadir Topbas, following demands that they resign from Erdogan, who says he is seeking a renewal of his ruling AK Party.

“Three mayors from our party have handed in their resignations so far, and there are three more. I believe they will hand theirs in as soon as possible,” Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara last week before Gokcek and one other mayor resigned.

Erdogan decision to target the mayors follows his narrow victory in a referendum to grant himself sweeping powers last year, which was more popular with rural than urban voters. Seventeen of the country’s 30 largest cities voted against it.

Since then, Erdogan has spoken of the need for renewal in local government and the ruling AK Party, citing signs of “metal fatigue” within administrations.

Gokcek, generally regarded as a staunch Erdogan loyalist, is well known in Turkey for tweets in which he has engaged in spats with journalists and with other senior members of the AKP.

In February he suggested the U.S.-based cleric blamed by Erdogan for a failed coup last year might be plotting an earthquake, with the help of foreign powers.

 

(Writing by Ece Toksabay; editing by Peter Graff)

 

U.S. still seeking explanation for arrest of staff in Turkey: ambassador

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass speaks during a meeting with media members in Ankara, Tukey, October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Tulay Karadeniz and Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – The United States is still seeking an explanation from Ankara for the detention of staff at U.S. missions in Turkey which led Washington to stop issuing visas and triggered a diplomatic crisis, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday.

Ambassador John Bass said the decision to suspend granting visas was not taken lightly, but the detentions indicated a breakdown in communication between the two NATO allies, whose relations have come under increasing strain.

“Unfortunately… the U.S. government still has not received any official communications from the Turkish government about the reasons why our local employees have been detained or arrested,” he told reporters at the U.S. embassy in Ankara.

Washington says two locally employed staff were arrested in Turkey this year. In May, a translator at the consulate in the southern province of Adana was arrested and last week a Drug Enforcement Administration worker was detained in Istanbul.

President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said last week the Istanbul employee, Metin Topuz, had been in contact with a leading suspect in last year’s failed military coup. Turkish media reported similar accusations against the translator.

“The notion that people in our employment are facing or are under suspicion of terrorism charges here, that is a very serious allegation,” Bass said. “It is one we want to take seriously and we want to better understand the ostensible evidence that supports these allegations”.

Since the failed military coup in July last year, in which at least 240 people were killed, more than 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000, including teachers, academics, soldiers and journalists, have been suspended from work.

Some Western allies fear the crackdown shows the country is slipping ever deeper into authoritarian rule under Erdogan.

Ankara says its critics fail to understand the scale of the security challenges in Turkey, which has also faced conflict on its southern borders with Iraq and Syria, and an insurgency in its mainly Kurdish southeast.

ENVOY TARGETED

Erdogan has blamed Bass for the latest dispute, suggesting he acted unilaterally in suspending visa services and declaring that his government no longer considered Bass to be Washington’s envoy and would not hold meetings with him.

The U.S. State Department denied Bass acted alone, saying his actions were coordinated with officials in Washington.

In a sign that Ankara was stepping back from the pledge to exclude Bass, Turkish television channels reported that he met a foreign ministry official later on Wednesday. The ambassador is due to leave Turkey within days to take up a post in Afghanistan.

U.S.-Turkish tensions have risen in recent months over U.S. military support for Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, considered by Ankara to be an extension of the banned PKK which has waged an insurgency for three decades in southeast Turkey.

Turkey has also pressed, so far in vain, for the United States to extradite Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan who is viewed in Ankara as the mastermind behind the failed coup.

Another source of friction was the U.S. indictment of Turkey’s former economy minister Zafer Caglayan for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. A U.S. court also indicted 15 of Erdogan’s guards after they clashed with protesters during his visit to Washington in May.

In addition to the two detained consulate workers, Turkey is holding a U.S. pastor on charges which Turkish media say include membership of Gulen’s network. Bass called for the release of the Christian missionary, Andrew Brunson, saying he had seen nothing of merit in the charges against him.

He denied reports that Turkish police were trying to speak to another consulate employee. “To the best of our knowledge there are not any outstanding requests from Turkish law enforcement officials for any of our local staff to come in and talk to them,” he said.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Hugh Lawson)

Istanbul court orders four activists detained again – website

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the attempted coup at the Parliament in Ankara, Turkey July 16, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A Turkish court ordered the re-arrest on Friday of four activists who had briefly been freed after being detained along with the local director of human rights group Amnesty International, Hurriyet Daily News website reported.

The activists were in a group of 10 people detained two weeks ago while attending a workshop near Istanbul. They were released on Tuesday, while the other six were remanded in custody on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization.

The website said the new detention warrants were issued following an appeal against their release by the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office.

The 10 detainees include Amnesty’s Idil Eser, and German national Peter Steudtner, whose arrest has deepened a political crisis between Ankara and Berlin.

Germany said on Friday it was reviewing applications for arms projects from Turkey, accusing it of stepping up covert operations on German soil, and a minister in Berlin compared Ankara’s behavior over the detention of the activists to the authoritarian former communist East Germany.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Germany to “pull itself together”.

The 10 activists were detained as part of a crackdown following last July’s failed coup attempt in Turkey. Ankara says the steps are necessary to confront many threats against Turkey, but Western countries have been increasingly critical.

Amnesty International said on Tuesday the activists’ detention was part of a “politically motivated witch-hunt”.

(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Turkey’s opposition leader launches court challenge as he marches to Istanbul

Supporters of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu walk with a giant Turkish flag on the 19th day of a protest, dubbed "justice march", against the detention of the party's lawmaker Enis Berberoglu, near Izmit, Turkey, July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s main opposition leader launched a European court appeal on Tuesday over an April vote that granted President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping powers, stepping up his challenge to the government as he led a 425 km (265 mile) protest march.

Erdogan accuses the protesters, marching from Ankara to Istanbul, of “acting together with terrorist groups”, referring to Kurdish militants and followers of a U.S.-based cleric who Ankara says was behind last year’s coup.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), hit back on Tuesday, defending his “justice march” and accusing the government of creating a one-party state in the wake of the failed putsch on July 15.

On the 20th day of his march, triggered by the jailing of a CHP deputy on spying charges, Kilicdaroglu signed an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the election board’s decision to accept unstamped ballots in the April 16 referendum.

“Turkey has rapidly turned into a (one-)party state. Pretty much all state institutions have become branches of a political party,” he told reporters. “This is causing profound harm to our democratic, parliamentary system.”

Kilicdaroglu, 68, wearing a white shirt and a baseball cap with the word ‘justice’ printed on it, then set out on the latest leg of the march from the city of Izmit, around 100 km (60 miles) along the coast to the east of central Istanbul.

The protest has gained momentum as it passes through northwest Turkey’s countryside and representatives of the pro-Kurdish HDP, parliament’s third largest party, joined the march on Monday near the jail of its former co-leader Figen Yuksekdag.

There are deep divisions among opposition parties but Yuksekdag, stripped of her parliamentary status in February, issued a statement from her cell on Monday calling for them to put those differences aside.

“We must set up the shattered scales of justice again and fight for this together,” she wrote, saying justice had hit “rock bottom” with the jailing of 11 HDP lawmakers and around 100 mayors.

The party rejects charges of ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, designated a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, which launched an insurgency in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

“TERROR GROUP” ACCUSATIONS

As the protesters advance, Erdogan has stepped up his attacks on the march, saying the CHP was longer acting as a political opposition.

“We can see that they have reached the point of acting together with terror groups and those powers which provoke them against our country,” he said in a speech to officials from his ruling AK Party on Saturday.

“The path which you are taking is the one of Qandil, the one of Pennsylvania,” he said, referring to the northern Iraqi mountains where the PKK is based and the U.S. state where Erdogan’s ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen lives.

Kilicdaroglu launched his march in Ankara on June 15 after Enis Berberoglu was jailed for 25 years for espionage, becoming the first lawmaker from the party imprisoned in a government crackdown in the wake of the attempted coup.

Since the purge began, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial, 150,000 have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs. Ankara has also shut down 130 media outlets and some 160 journalists are in prison, according to union data.

In April a referendum was held on constitutional changes that sharply widened Erdogan’s presidential authority and the proposals won 51.4 percent approval in a vote, which has triggered opposition challenges including the latest CHP move.

Opposition parties have said the poll was deeply flawed and European election observers said the decision to allow unstamped ballot papers to be counted had removed a main safeguard against voting fraud.

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Richard Balmforth)

Turkish PM urges opposition head to call off 20-day protest march

Supporters of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) join party's leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu during the second day of a protest, dubbed a "justice march", against the detention of the CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu, in the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey June 16, 2017. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Daren Butler and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s prime minister urged the head of the main opposition party on Friday to end a 425 kilometer (265 mile) march from Ankara to Istanbul in protest over the jailing of one of his lawmakers, saying justice “cannot be sought on the streets”.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, 68, head of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), set out on the march on Thursday after Enis Berberoglu was jailed for 25 years on spying charges. He was seen off by thousands of supporters and has garnered much attention in a country where government dominates the media.

Kilicdaroglu trudged along a highway outside Ankara on Friday dressed in dark slacks and blue shirt. Sunburned and wearing a cap, he carried a sign that said “Justice”.

Rights groups and government critics, including members of Kilicdaroglu’s CHP, say Turkey is sliding toward authoritarianism, citing a crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup that has seen more than 50,000 people jailed and 150,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs.

“I advise Kilicdaroglu to desist from this act,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters. “Justice cannot be sought on the streets, Turkey is a state of law… Even if we don’t like a court’s ruling, we have to respect it.”

Berberoglu was accused of giving the Cumhuriyet newspaper a video it used as the basis of a May 2015 report that alleged trucks owned by the state intelligence service (MIT)were stopped and found to contain arms and ammunition headed for Syria.

Berberoglu is the first CHP lawmaker to be jailed in the government crackdown, which has seen eleven members of parliament from the pro-Kurdish opposition party jailed.

Kilicdaroglu has called the arrest “lawless” and motivated by the presidential palace, a reference to President Tayyip Erdogan. His march, planned to end at the Istanbul prison where Berberoglu is being held, is expected to take more than 20 days.

‘DEMOCRACY’

“We have been, and will be, calling and defending justice, justice, justice, and democracy, democracy, democracy,” he told reporters during his march. “No matter what they say.”

Turkey’s justice minister said Kilicdaroglu was trying to foment opposition to the judicial system.

“It is not possible to break the balance of the scales of justice by walking on roads,” Bekir Bozdag said.

Erdogan acknowledged the trucks belonged to the MIT but said they carried aid to ethnic Turkmens battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State, and not weapons for rebels.

Erdogan accused Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul of undermining Turkey’s reputation and vowed Dundar would “pay a heavy price”.

Last year, Dundar and Gul were sentenced to at least five years jail in a related case. The prosecutor is now seeking another 10 years for the two over the report on the trucks. Dundar is being tried in absentia after leaving Turkey. Gul remains in the country and free while his case is in process.

(Writing by David Dolan; editing by Ralph Boulton)

In historic referendum, Turkey’s Erdogan faces his biggest test

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters during an event ahead of the constitutional referendum in Istanbul, Turkey April 12, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Much like the vast mosque he has commissioned atop one of Istanbul’s highest hills, President Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters hope a referendum on Sunday will be a crowning achievement in his drive to reshape Turkey.

The vote, in which millions of Turks will decide whether to replace their parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, may bring the biggest change in their system of governance since the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago.

The outcome will have repercussions beyond Turkish shores.

(Graphic – Turkey’s referendum: a simple vote but a close race: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pyhiFR)

Never in recent times has Turkey, one of only two Muslim members of the NATO military alliance, been so central to world affairs, from the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to Europe’s migrant crisis and Ankara’s shifting allegiances with Moscow and Washington.

The campaign has split the country of 80 million down the middle, its divisions spilling over to the large Turkish diaspora in Europe. Erdogan has accused European leaders of acting like Nazis for banning rallies on security grounds, while his opponents overseas say they have been spied on.

Erdogan’s fervent supporters see his drive for greater powers as the just reward for a leader who has put Islamist values back at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and delivered airports, hospitals and schools.

Opponents fear a lurch toward authoritarianism under a president they see as addicted to power and intolerant of dissent, chipping away at the secular foundations laid by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and taking it ever further from Western values on democracy and free speech.

“Within the past 15 years he has achieved everything once considered impossible, unthinkable for Turks, be it bridges, undersea tunnels, roads, airports,” said Ergin Kulunk, 65, a civil engineer who heads an Istanbul mosque association that is financing the new mosque on the city’s Camlica Hill.

“The biggest quality of the Chief is that he touches people. I saw him at a recent gathering literally shaking almost 1,000 hands. He’s not doing that for politics. It comes from the heart,” he said, as Erdogan’s voice boomed from a television in the corner, broadcasting one of his daily campaign rallies.

In Kulunk’s office on Camlica Hill, once a hunting ground for the Ottoman well-to-do and now a popular viewing point, a signed picture of Erdogan hung on the wall next to portraits of Ataturk and Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid.

But for Erdogan’s opponents – including secularist liberals, left-leaning Kurds and even some nationalists – his tightening grip poses an almost existential threat.

“He’s trying to destroy the republic and the legacy of Ataturk,” said Nurten Kayacan, 61, a housewife from the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, attending a small “No” rally at an Istanbul ferry port.

“If the ‘Yes’ vote wins, we’re headed to chaos. He will be the president of only half of the country,” she said.

“ONE-MAN SYSTEM”

Erdogan assumed the presidency, then a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister, and has since continued to dominate politics by force of personality, making no secret of his ambition for greater powers.

He has ridden a wave of patriotism since an abortive coup in July, casting Turkey as at peril from a cocktail of outside forces and in need of strong leadership to see off threats from Islamic State, Kurdish militants, the enemies within who tried to oust him and their foreign backers.

A poll two weeks after the attempted putsch showed him with two-thirds approval, his highest ever, but more recent surveys suggest a much closer race. A narrow majority of Turks will vote “Yes”, two opinion polls suggested on Thursday, putting his support at only a little over 51 percent.

Pollsters acknowledge there may be a hidden “No” vote, whose numbers are hard to assess, among traditional supporters of the ruling AK Party concerned about Erdogan’s authoritarian instincts, particularly after more than 120,000 civil servants were sacked or suspended since the failed coup.

Etyen Mahcupyan, a one-time chief adviser to former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a key figure in the AKP, wrote in the Karar newspaper on Thursday that he would be voting “No”.

“The (proposed) model will cause great harm in the medium term to conservatives and Turkey,” he wrote, saying the changes would usher in a “one-man system” open to abuse. “Every AKP member must vigorously stand up for the protection of the party and for its capacity and potential to govern.”

Erdogan’s supporters reject such charges, saying the 18 constitutional amendments being put to a simple “Yes/No” vote contain sufficient checks and balances, such as the provision that a new presidential election would be triggered should the president dissolve parliament.

Erdogan has focused in recent campaign events on trying to ridicule the leader of the main secularist CHP opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, playing videos of his gaffes in the apparent hope that voter patterns will reflect the last national election in November 2015, when AKP dominated the electoral map.

Such populist tactics have won him boisterous applause from those who revere him. But he has spent less time on the details of the proposed constitutional reforms.

“Eighty percent of voters in Turkey vote according to ideology. That is, they will cast their votes in this referendum without knowing its content,” said Murat Gezici, head of the Gezici polling company.

“If ‘Yes’ emerges victorious, they’ll only find out what they said yes to by experience. Only then will they face the problems,” he said in his Istanbul office.

(Additional reporting by Umit Bektas, Melih Aslan and Daren Butler; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Heavens)