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More info @ET – ‘Power struggle weakens Erdogan’.
Erdogan Fighting Back as Graft Probe Threatens Legacy
(Bloomberg) – Six months after routing opposition-led protests in the center of Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now battling the allies who have helped him lead for 11 years.
The power struggle, which saw Erdogan loyalists detained in a graft probe, has divided the police and judiciary and led to the resignations of Interior Minister Muammer Guler, Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar. Its outcome may determine the fate and legacy of the 59-year-old premier, who says he is fighting what amounts to a coup attempt. Bayraktar urged Erdogan to step down, saying the premier signed off on projects mentioned in the probe.
“No one should expect Erdogan to step down, although it will tarnish his image and erode his power,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said in an interview on Dec. 23. “He is still the most popular leader in the country.”
The struggle involves allegations of bribery, gold smuggling and money laundering that Erdogan says have been pursued by a “state within a state.” Members of Erdogan’s ruling party accused followers of U.S.-based imam Fethullah Gulen for the crackdown. The cleric broke with the prime minister this year, rupturing a partnership that sustained the longest period of political stability since Turkey adopted a multiparty system in 1946.
Prosecutor in second graft investigation says case ‘taken out of his hands’
This event won’t go away and (hopefully) will lead to the demise of Erdogan’s led government in the elections of 2014. The good-will Erdogan had build with the West has been lost in these past few years where Erdogan replaces the secular state of Turkey with APK religious morals to obfuscate his authoritarian leadership. Erdogan and his APK cohorts must go. It’s time for change in a new revolt led by protests of the people in Turkey.
See my earlier comment – Five Police Commissioners Dismissed In Probe.
Erdogan’s demise is strenghtened by his failed foreign policy in support of the Muslim Brotherhood across the North African Arab nations and the horrific support of jihadists moving across the border into Syria. The blow-back of refugees fleeing the armed unrest and suicide bomb-attacks in Alawite territory has proven his failure. Perhaps this will encourage the Kurds to unite across northern Syria, north Kurdish Iraq with Mosul and Kirkuk and parts of Turkey and Iran to form their independent state. Turkey has profited from their massive investments in Kurdish Iraq which may now be in jeopardy.
○ Sultan Erdogan of the Emirate of Turkey
○ Muslim Brothers Axis Egypt – Turkey – Qatar Faces Defeat
○ US/Russia Should Lead – A Yalta Conference on Middle East