ISTANBUL: Istanbul’s powerful police chief was dismissed from his post yesterday over an anti-corruption action striking at the heart of Turkey’s ruling elite and threatening the authority of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at home and abroad.
Huseyin Capkin was the most senior commander so far to be sacked following the dismissal of dozens of senior officers on Wednesday over what Erdogan has termed a “dirty operation” to tarnish the government.
Scores of people, including sons of three ministers and some prominent businessmen close to Erdogan, have been detained in an action seen widely as symptom of a power struggle with a US-based cleric who wields influence in police and judiciary.
“Just as naturally as it was for us to come, so it is equally natural for us to go,” Capkin told Turkish television. “We have tried to serve our state, our nation with loyalty.”
He was moved to a low-profile post in the Interior Ministry.
Erdogan’s AKP was created in 2001 from a coalition of conservative religious, centrist and nationalist politicians. It swept to power in 2002, drawing on fury over corruption and economic incompetence. Turks have seen unprecedented prosperity since then, but underlying perceptions of graft remain.
“Corruption in Turkey is the Achilles Heel of the AK Party,” Writer and columnist Cengiz Candar said. “It also undermines their approach towards their morality, which is grounded on Islam.
“Corruption has an important impact in terms of determining the success of ruling parties at the ballot box.”
Erdogan, still by far the most popular Turkish leader of modern times, said he would not tolerate corruption, but saw in the raids a conspiracy to “create a state within the state”.
“We will definitely unveil this organisation,” he said.
Gulen’s Hizmet (Service) movement, long a close ally of Erdogan, has in recent months publicly fallen out with the Prime Minister over the prime minister’s plans to shut down private schools in Turkey, including those run by Hizmet.
REUTERS
Former general freed pending trial
ISTANBUL: A Turkish court yesterday released a former general and four other suspects pending trial over a 1997 bloodless coup that toppled the country’s first Islamist head of government, media said.
Cevik Bir, considered the “mastermind” of the coup plot, was arrested in April 2012 along with 102 others on charges of “overthrowing the Turkish government by force.” The court freed the suspects on the grounds that all evidence had already been gathered.
AFP
