Tag Archives: Turkey

Jailed German-Turkish reporter sees Turkey drifting toward fascism

Jailed German-Turkish reporter sees Turkey drifting toward fascism

BERLIN (Reuters) – Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist detained by Ankara since February, has accused Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan of subjecting his entire society to a “regime of fear” and said Turkey is drifting toward fascism.

Yucel, 44, a correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt, made the remarks in a lengthy interview with the German newspaper die tageszeitung to be published on Saturday.

Turkish authorities arrested Yucel, on Feb. 14 on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organization, during a wave of arrests prompted by a failed coup attempt in July 2016.

Germany is backing a complaint filed by Yucel with the European Court of Human Rights, and has repeatedly called for him and other Germans being held in Turkey to be released.

The detentions have contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations between the two NATO allies.

In total, Ankara has jailed more than 50,000 people pending trial and suspended or dismissed some 150,000 state workers including teachers, judges and soldiers since the coup, which Turkey blames on the movement of U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen has denied any role, and condemned the coup.

Yucel told the newspaper he remained in solitary confinement at Silivri prison, west of Istanbul. “Solitary confinement is torture,” he said.

Yucel also said that even his prison guards were afraid of making a wrong move: “A regime of fear is not directed solely at its critics, but also affects members of the oppressive apparatus.”

He said Erdogan himself had the most to fear: “He knows what to expect if he loses power, and that is why he is subjecting the whole society to his regime of fear.”

Yucel said he hoped the European Court would act quickly on his case after a Nov. 28 deadline for Turkey to submit its position, but that he was not sure what to expect.

He said that, like many of Erdogan’s critics, he was disappointed that the court had rejected cases brought by teachers and government workers affected by the crackdown, which Erdogan says is necessary to guarantee Turkey’s stability.

“But I also know the European Court of Human Rights was founded to deal with individual human rights violations, not to stop a whole country drifting into fascism,” he said.

The newspaper said the interview had been conducted in writing via Yucel’s lawyers.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Turkish nationalist opposition seeks to secure parliamentary future

Turkish nationalist opposition seeks to secure parliamentary future

By Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s nationalist opposition will seek support from the ruling AK Party to lower a 10 percent threshold to enter parliament, a party official said on Thursday, in a sign that a new rival political party could shake up Turkish politics.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener broke with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and formed her own Iyi Parti (“Good Party”) last month, posing a challenge to the MHP and to President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara, MHP Deputy Chairman Semih Yalcin said his party, which could fall below the threshold if Iyi Parti’s apparent early popularity is sustained, would push to lower the barrier.

“The MHP has preparations regarding the (threshold) electoral law, and this will be discussed depending on the offers we receive (from the AK Party),” Yalcin said, a day after MHP leader Devlet Bahceli called the threshold “too harsh”.

Since 1982, political parties in Turkey have needed to win at least 10 percent of votes to be represented in the 550-seat parliament. The country faces presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.

A recent poll suggested that Aksener’s party could overtake the main opposition secular CHP and push the MHP and pro-Kurdish opposition HDP out of parliament by forcing their share of the vote below the current threshold. It would also cut into the AK Party share of the vote.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party, led by Erdogan, is a broad organization, counting among its ranks nationalists and religious conservatives.

“Will they (Iyi) win 20 percent or one percent? We will see… Everyone will see how they hold up after they stand in front of the people in 2019,” Yalcin said of the Iyi Parti.

The MHP won as much as 18 percent of votes in a 1999 parliamentary election but slipped below the threshold at 9.5 percent in 2002. It has exceeded 10 percent since then.

Under an executive presidential system approved in an April referendum, the president will be given expanded powers. The number of MPs will be increased from 550 to 600, while the parliament’s authority will be reduced.

Critics argue that lowering the threshold, and the resulting change in the composition of parliament, would not have any great impact under the new presidential system.

The AK Party, founded by Erdogan, has dominated Turkish politics since 2002, holding a majority in parliament for 15 years. After winning almost 50 percent of votes in the latest parliamentary elections in 2015, Erdogan and party officials said they aimed to win more than half the votes in 2019.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Ece Toksabay)

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)

 

Syrian opposition rejects Russia-sponsored peace initiative

Mohammad Alloush (C), the head of the Syrian opposition delegation, attends Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan

BEIRUT/AMMAN/ANKARA (Reuters) – The Syrian opposition has rejected a new, Russian-sponsored initiative to reach a political settlement to the Syrian conflict, and Turkey protested against the invitation of the Syrian Kurdish side as Moscow’s peacemaking bid hit early complications on Wednesday.

Having intervened decisively in the Syrian war in 2015 in support of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia now hopes to build on the collapse of Islamic State to launch a new political process towards ending the six-year-long conflict.

Damascus has said it is ready to attend the Nov. 18 Sochi congress which is set to focus on a new constitution, saying the time is right thanks to Syrian army gains and the “terrorists’ obliteration”.

But officials in the anti-Assad opposition rejected the meeting and insisted any peace talks be held under U.N. sponsorship in Geneva, where peace talks have failed to make any progress towards ending the conflict since it erupted in 2011.

The congress amounted to a meeting “between the regime and the regime”, said Mohammad Alloush, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee and a senior official with the Jaish al-Islam rebel group.

The HNC was surprised it had been mentioned in a list of groups invited to the congress and would “issue a statement with other parties setting out the general position rejecting this conference”, Alloush told Reuters.

The Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition (SNC) political opposition group said the congress was an attempt to circumvent “the international desire for political transition” in Syria.

“The Coalition will not participate in any negotiations with the regime outside Geneva or without U.N. sponsorship,” SNC spokesman Ahmad Ramadan told Reuters.

A Russian negotiator said on Tuesday that Syrian groups who choose to boycott the congress risked being sidelined as the political process moves ahead.

Russia has invited 33 Syrian groups and political parties to what it calls a “Syrian Congress on National Dialogue”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin first mentioned the idea of the congress last month, saying that he believed Moscow and the Syrian government would soon finally defeat militants in Syria.

Helped by Russia’s air force and an array of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias, Assad has defeated many of the Syrian rebels who were fighting to topple him, leaving him militarily unassailable and the rebels confined to enclaves of the west.

Damascus and its allies have also recovered swathes of central and eastern Syria from Islamic State in recent months, while a separate campaign by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has driven IS from other areas of the country.

The separate campaigns are now converging on Islamic State’s last strongholds in Deir al-Zor province at the Iraqi border.

Russia’s decision to invite the Kurdish groups which dominate the SDF to Sochi triggered Turkish irritation on Wednesday. Ankara, which views the dominant Syrian Kurdish groups as a national security threat, said it was unacceptable that the Kurdish YPG militia had been invited.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Turkish and Russian officials had discussed the issue and that he had held meetings of his own to “solve the problem on the spot.”

Turkey views the YPG and its political affiliate, the PYD, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

 

(Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Lisa Barrington in Beirut, and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Larry King and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

Refugees in Greece demand transfer to Germany, start hunger strike

A girl holds a placard reading, "where is my Mother, where is my Father", as refugees protest, some announcing a hunger strike, as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017.

By Karolina Tagaris and Deborah Kyvrikosaios

ATHENS (Reuters) – A group of mainly Syrian women and children who have been stranded in Greece pitched tents opposite parliament in Athens on Wednesday in a protest against delays in reuniting with relatives in Germany.

Some of the refugees, who say they have been in Greece for over a year, said they had begun a hunger strike.

“Our family ties our stronger than your illegal agreements,” read a banner held up by one woman, referring to deals on refugees between European Union nations.

Refugees, some announcing a hunger strike, hold placards during a protest as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017.

Refugees, some announcing a hunger strike, hold placards during a protest as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Greek media have reported that Greece and Germany informally agreed in May to slow down refugee reunification, stranding families in Greece for months after they fled Syria’s civil war. Greece denies this.

“What we’ve managed to do on family reunification is to have an increase of about 27 percent this year compared with last year, even though we’re accused of cutting back family reunification and doing deals to cut back family reunification,” Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas told reporters.

Mouzalas said Greece had assurances from Germany that refugees whose applications have been accepted will eventually go to Germany even if there are delays. He denied that refugees had to pay for their flights.

Applications for asylum, reunification and relocation to other European countries can take months to be processed.

“I have not seen my husband, my child, for more than one year and nine months,” said 32-year-old Syrian Dalal Rashou, who has five children, one of whom is in Germany with her husband.

“I miss him and every day I am here in Greece I cry. I don’t want to stay here, I want to go to my husband” she said.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have become stranded in Greece after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

Nearly 148,084 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year – a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015 – but arrivals have picked up in recent months.

An average of 214 people arrived each day in September, up from 156 in August, 87 in July and 56 in March, Mouzalas said.

The rise has stretched Greek island camps, which are struggling to cope with numbers two to three times their capacity. Most new arrivals are women and children, according to United Nations data.

Mouzalas said the government was in talks with local authorities to move refugees and migrants to local accommodation, including hotels, and it also planned to increase the capacity of some facilities.

 

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Deborah Kyvrikossaios)

 

New Turkish party could cost Erdogan support, dislodge main opposition

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a conference in Ankara, Turkey, November 1, 2017.

By Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA(Reuters) – A new Turkish political party founded by a former minister and vocal critic of Tayyip Erdogan could cost the president crucial support and potentially unseat the main opposition, a poll suggested on Wednesday.

The survey by prominent polling firm Gezici showed that the Iyi Parti (“Good Party”), founded this month by the breakaway nationalist lawmaker Meral Aksener, could mark a dramatic shift in Turkish politics, eclipsing the secular CHP that dominated Turkish politics for large parts of the republic’s history.

While only five members of the 550-seat parliament have joined Aksener’s party, the survey suggested it could win over voters from several parties, including Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party as well as secular or nationalist groups.

Although Turkey’s next elections are not due until 2019, pollster Gezici asked 4,638 respondents how they would vote in the event of a snap election.

Support for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, which has been in power since 2002, would fall to 43.8 percent, from 49.5 percent in the November 2015 parliamentary polls, the survey showed.

Aksener’s party would win 19.5 percent of the vote, beating the secularist People’s Republican Party’s (CHP) 18.5 percent, it showed. That would mark the first time since 2002 elections that the CHP – established by Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – was not the main opposition.

The CHP won 25 percent of votes in 2015.

The nationalist MHP, where Aksener previously served as a lawmaker and interior minister, and the pro-Kurdish HDP were both seen falling below the 10 percent threshold needed to enter the 550-seat parliament.

The MHP was seen polling at 8.8 percent, from 11.9 in 2015. The HDP, whose leaders have been jailed in the crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup, was seen taking 7.0 percent, from 10.8 in 2015.

 

ERDOGAN CRITIC

Gezici was one of the most accurate pollsters on the results of April’s referendum to change the constitution.

The poll was conducted between Oct. 10-15, days before the widely expected announcement of the formation of the Iyi Parti. Respondents were asked to choose from a list of potential political parties, including “Aksener’s party”.

Aksener was expelled last year from the nationalist MHP, the smallest of three opposition parties in parliament, after launching a failed bid to unseat party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose support helped Erdogan to a narrow victory in the April referendum that expanded his authority.

Since her expulsion, the 61-year-old has become one of the most prominent voices in the country, frequently criticizing Erdogan and the government.

In the case of the Iyi Parti not participating in potential snap elections, the AKP would win just over 47 percent, while the CHP would earn 26.8 percent, the poll showed.

The AKP, founded by Erdogan, has held a majority in parliament for nearly 15 years. After winning almost 50 percent of votes in 2015, Erdogan and party officials said they aimed to win more than half the votes in the coming general elections.

 

 

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

Turkey’s Erdogan takes legal action after lawmaker calls him ‘fascist dictator’

Turkey's Erdogan takes legal action after lawmaker calls him 'fascist dictator'

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan filed a criminal complaint against a prominent opposition lawmaker on Tuesday, one of Erdogan’s lawyers said, after the deputy called the Turkish leader a fascist dictator.

In blistering criticism of Erdogan, the spokesman for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, Bulent Tezcan, attacked what he said was a “fearful atmosphere” in Turkey.

Erdogan’s lawyer, Huseyin Aydin, said on Twitter: “We have filed a legal petition concerning Bulent Tezcan with the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office for the crime of insulting the president.” Aydin also posted photos of the petition.

“The suspect’s statements are part of a new campaign against our president and cannot be interpreted as an isolated incident,” the petition said, saying such a campaign had also been launched ahead of last year’s attempted coup.

In a speech on Monday in the western city of Tekirdag, criticizing local judicial authorities, Tezcan had said: “If you try to scare people and to create a fearful atmosphere by showing legal words as illegal ones we will not be deterred.”

His comments appeared to be in defense of the local mayor, a CHP member, who was questioned by authorities this month after he reportedly called Erdogan a “dictator” at a party congress.

“I don’t know if our mayor said that or not. I, here in Tekirdag, say it now: ‘Erdogan is a fascist dictator’,” Tezcan said.

His comments prompted a swift backlash from Erdogan’s office and lawmakers from his ruling AK Party, with Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin saying his “hate speech is an example of disgrace for the main opposition”.

Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey.

Lawyers for Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, have filed more than 1,800 cases against people including cartoonists, a former Miss Turkey winner and school children on accusations of insulting him.

Following the failed coup of July 15 last year, Erdogan said he would drop outstanding suits, in a one-off gesture.

Nonetheless, rights groups and some Western governments have voiced concern that Turkey is sliding toward authoritarianism. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and more than 50,000 jailed pending trial on suspicion of links to the failed coup.

Erdogan says such measures are necessary to ensure stability and defend Turkey from multiple security threats.

 

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Paul Tait and David Dolan)

 

Iraqi authorities gain first foothold at Kurdish frontier with Turkey

Iraqi authorities gain first foothold at Kurdish frontier with Turkey

By Ahmed Rasheed, Ercan Gurses and Raya Jalabi

ANKARA/BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi troops deployed on Tuesday at one of the main land crossings with Turkey, gaining a foothold at the Kurdish-held frontier for the first time in decades and imposing one of Baghdad’s central demands on the Kurds.

Iraq’s entire land border with Turkey is located inside the Kurdish autonomous region, and has been controlled by the Kurds since before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But since the Kurds staged a referendum on independence last month that Baghdad considers illegal, the central government has demanded a presence at all border crossing points.

The Iraqis set up positions between the Turkish and the Iraqi Kurdish checkpoints at the border crossing between the Turkish town of Habur and the Iraqi Kurdish town of Fish-Khabur, a security source in Baghdad said.

Vehicles crossing the border would now be subject to three checks — by Turks, Iraqi forces and the Kurds.

“Habur border gate has been handed over to the central government as of this morning,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told members of his ruling AK Party in parliament in Ankara.

Officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said they had not relinquished control of the crossing. Discussions were ongoing to allow Iraqi “oversight” at the border, Hoshyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister now working as an advisor to the KRG, told Reuters.

An Iraqi official showed Reuters pictures of the Iraqi flag being raised at the border gate, where Iraqi and Turkish soldiers were deployed and Turkish flags also hoisted.

The issue of control of the border crossing is of crucial importance for the landlocked Kurdish region. The Fish-Khabur crossing is the site of the main oil export pipeline for northern Iraq, and crude exports through it are the principal source of funds for the Kurds.

BALANCE SHIFTS

The balance of power between Iraqi central government forces and the autonomous Kurdish region has been transformed since the Kurds staged their referendum on Sept. 25.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi ordered his forces to recapture all territory held by the Kurds outside the borders of their autonomous region, and most of it was seized this month within a matter of days.

Baghdad is also demanding control of all border crossings with Turkey and Iran. Abadi has won backing from both Tehran and Ankara for his moves against the Kurds.

Iraq’s military said a delegation headed by army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi was visiting the Fish-Khabur area to take control of Kurdish-held international border checkpoints with both Turkey and Syria.

Zebari, the Kurdish government advisor, said the Kurds were prepared to accept “Iraqis at the airports and border posts to have oversight, to make sure everyone is in compliance”, but any such presence must be achieved through negotiations, not force.

The split between the Kurds and the Iraqi central government is a particular challenge for Washington which is closely allied to both sides. The United States had urged the Kurds not to hold the referendum, worried that it would precipitate a backlash.

The referendum and ensuing dispute with Baghdad has also exposed deep rifts within the Kurdish leadership. Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani announced on Sunday that he would step down, and accused security forces loyal to a rival political party of “high treason” for yielding territory to the central government without a fight.

The KRG and the central government held talks Friday through Sunday to resolve their conflict.

Yildirim said Turkey had agreed to open another border gate with Iraq as part of a route that would lead to the city of Tal Afar, some 40 km west of Mosul and home to a predominantly ethnic Turkmen population.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Raya Jalabi in Erbil, Daren Butler in Ankara; writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Peter Graff)

Former Turkish minister launches party to challenge Erdogan

Former Turkish minister launches party to challenge Erdogan

By Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – A prominent Turkish nationalist politician and former minister announced on Wednesday she was forming a new party which could pose a significant challenge to President Tayyip Erdogan in elections due within two years.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener, who unsuccessfully opposed Erdogan’s drive for greater presidential powers in a referendum last April, said Turkey needed change after nearly 15 years of rule by his AK Party.

Her Iyi Parti (Good Party) is seen by many in Turkey as potentially one of the strongest challengers to Erdogan in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2019, but it starts out with only a fraction of the AK Party’s support.

Just five members of the 550-seat parliament have joined the new party, although pollsters say it could win over supporters of several parties including the conservative and Islamic-rooted AK Party as well as secular or nationalist groups.

“Turkey and its people are tired, the state is worn down, and public order is unraveling. There is no way other than the changing of the political atmosphere,” Aksener said at a ceremony in Ankara to mark the launch of her party.

“We are that way out, you are that way out. That road is the 80 million strong Turkish nation” she said, standing in front of the logo of her party – a yellow sun shining in a blue sky. “Our people are clearly saying they want … a new government.”

Aksener was expelled last year from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the smallest of three opposition parties in parliament, after launching a failed bid to unseat party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose support helped Erdogan to a narrow victory in a referendum that expanded his authority.

Since her expulsion, the 61-year old Aksener has become one of the most prominent voices in the country, frequently criticizing Erdogan and the government.

“BIG CHANGES”

The Iyi Party could take more than a tenth of the AK Party support, which stands at over 40 percent, said Hakan Bayrakci of SONAR pollsters. It could also erode the support base of nationalist MHP and the secularist CHP parties, he said.

“Meral Aksener’s party will lead to big changes in Turkey’s political atmosphere,” Bayrakci told Reuters. “This may not be immediate, but in three to five months, I believe this shift will be visible.”

Erdogan’s AK Party won just under 50 percent of votes in the last parliamentary election, in November 2015, and he has told supporters it is aiming for more than half the votes in 2019.

Mehmet Ali Kulat from polling company Mak Danismanlik, which is seen as close to the AK Party, said the Iyi Party currently had the support of around 5 percent of voters.

“It looks like Aksener’s party can get votes from angry voters,” Kulat said. “Their real strength will come out in the long term.”

Aksener said many members of her party wanted her to stand as its presidential candidate in the 2019 election, and criticized what she described as an erosion of rights in Turkey.

“Democracy is under threat and the government’s justice is above all else. It is evident that society is at a political standstill,” Aksener said.

Since a failed military coup last year, in which more than 240 people were killed, Turkish authorities have detained more than 50,000 people and suspended 150,000 people including teachers, soldiers, journalists and lawyers.

Aksener said her party aimed to raise the average length of education in Turkey from seven years to 11 years, and promised to bring Turkey into the world’s top 20 countries for education. It currently lies around 50th in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

In previous weeks, several members from the MHP and the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have quit their parties to join Aksener, who has said her party’s doors were open to anyone “willing to walk with their cause”.

“We have hopes and dreams. We want a rich Turkey, we have power. We want a just Turkey and we have that power. We want a free Turkey and we have our rights,” she said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Robin Pomeroy)

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)