Turkey PM under Fire after New Round of Protests
Turkey's embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to address a political rally on Saturday in a bid to muster support after a fresh round of protests demanding that he step down over a spiraling corruption scandal.
The conservative prime minister, who has dug in his heels over the crisis that has led to the resignation of three ministers, was to speak in the southern city of Manisa later Saturday.
On Friday, police forcibly dispersed thousands of anti-government demonstrators in the capital Ankara and commercial hub Istanbul, leaving at least two people injured.
Erdogan is facing the biggest challenge to his 11 years in power because of the probe that has savaged his government, prompted party resignations and pushed the country's currency to a record low.
On Saturday, a prominent editorialist wrote an open letter to Erdogan warning him to end his feud with the judiciary that has seen him sack dozens of police officers involved in the corruption probe.
"This crisis will destroy not only you... It will destroy all of us," Ahmet Hakan wrote in an open letter to Erdogan in the Hurriyet daily.
"You cannot survive this crisis by defying the judiciary, defying the prosecutors, defying the courts," he wrote. "Please give up this mentality of 'I won't hand my inner circle over to the justice'."
Erdogan has also decreed that investigating police now inform their superiors before launching probes demanded by public prosecutors.
But Turkey's top court on Friday blocked the government decree, which it said would cause "irrevocable damage".
Political analysts link the high-level probe to simmering tensions between Erdogan's government and followers of influential Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States.
The so-called Gulen movement includes prominent members of the judiciary and the police.
'Dangerous political atmosphere'
Murat Belge, a prominent columnist, decried what he called a "dangerous political atmosphere" created by Erdogan's response to the crisis.
"There is no doubt that the corruption is a bad thing. No matter how we are used to it as a nation, it is a bad thing," he wrote on Saturday in Taraf, a mouthpiece for the movement.
"But the political atmosphere the prime minister has created after allegations emerged is even worse and more dangerous than the corruption itself," he said.
Erdogan has stood fast in claiming developments were a "smear campaign" mounted by obscure international forces.
"Those who call it a corruption inquiry are corrupt themselves," he told a large crowd of his supporters on Friday as he arrived in Istanbul from a political rally in the northwest.
A Turkish prosecutor said Thursday he had been prevented from expanding the corruption investigation, alleging pressure on the judiciary.
But Erdogan hit back at Muammer Akkas, calling him "the black sheep of justice".
"Who are you working for? If you do not explain it, we will release it," Erdogan said at a conference in the northwestern city of Sakarya.
Erdogan, who has led Turkey since 2002 as the head of a conservative Islamic-leaning government, is now seen as increasingly struggling to limit damage and hold on to power ahead of local polls in March, which will be followed by a presidential ballot in August and legislative elections in 2015.
In Istanbul on Friday, police used tear gas, water cannon and plastic bullets against the demonstrators, who hurled back stones and fireworks.
At least two people were hurt after the protest turned violent towards midnight, and local prosecutors said 70 people were arrested.
Protests also took place in eight other cities, local media reported.
At the Istanbul rally, some protesters held up shoeboxes in reference to images of boxes stuffed with millions of dollars found in the home of one of the corruption probe suspects, the head of the state-controlled Halkbank.
The controversial investigation led to a comprehensive cabinet reshuffle after the resignation on Wednesday of three ministers whose sons were implicated in the high-level probe.
Source: Agence France Presse
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