Bu sabah (Çarşamba, 26.2.2014) erken saatte yabancı basında ekteki yazılar yer aldı. Kimi manşette, kimi ilk sayfada ön planda. Gazeteler şunlar: The Guardian (İngiltere), New York Times (ABD), Christian Science Monitor (ABD), Le Devoir (Canada), Le Monde (Fransa).



AA



***



BUGÜN YABANCI BASINDA

Çarşamba, 26 Şubat 2014



The Guardian

LEAKED TAPES PROMPT CALLS FOR TURKISH PM TO RESIGN

Recordings appear to capture Recep Tayyip Erdogan instructing son

to dispose of hidden funds amid corruption investigation

Constanze Letsch in Istanbul

Turkish opposition parties called on the prime minister to resign on Tuesday as a result of an explosive corruption scandal in which he was allegedly caught on tape ordering his son to get rid of millions of dollars in incriminating cash.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded in characteristically robust form, dismissing the allegations against him as a plot to bring down his government – the latest in a wave of accusations fuelling widespread popular protest against his 11-year rule.

Recordings of phone-tapped conversations leaked on the internet appear to capture Erdogan instructing his 33-year-old son, Bilal, to dispose of large amounts of hidden funds from their private home in the midst of a corruption investigation.

Erdogan has rejected the allegations as "complete lies", insisting the recordings were fabricated to discredit his government. "Yesterday they published a play that they have assembled and dubbed themselves," he told a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). "What has been done is a vile attack against the Republic of Turkey and her prime minister. If we bow to this, we will be doing injustice to all coming prime ministers and ministers."

In the recording, a man alleged to be Erdogan tells his son to dispose of tens of millions as investigators are searching the homes of relatives of three cabinet ministers "for a big corruption operation".

"OK, so what I am saying is, get all that stuff in your house out. OK?" he says.

A voice alleged to be that of his son, Billal replies: "Dad, could that be? There is your money in the safe." The older man's voice responds: "That's what I mean."

Later, the person alleged to be the prime minister asks: "Did you make most of it vanish?" He is answered: "We haven't been able to do all of it yet. There are about 30m euros left. We haven't been able to get that out yet."

Erdogan described the recordings as "blackmail, being spread via Twitter".

But he admitted his phone had been tapped in what he called "Turkey's biggest eavesdropping scandal of all times".

Pro-government newspapers have claimed that thousands of government officials, academics, business people and journalists have been listened to illegally. It has been impossible to verify the authenticity of the recordings, which first appeared on YouTube but quickly spread across social media sites. Even so, they are likely to inflict a painful political blow.

The alleged conversation is said to have taken place on 17 December last year – a day on which police conducted a series of surprise raids that resulted in the arrest of the sons of three government ministers and several high-profile businessmen.

Since December, Erdogan has removed or fired the key people involved in these investigations, reappointed thousands of police officials and prosecutors, and rushed through laws tightening government control over the judiciary and prosecution services.

He has repeatedly blamed the US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen – a former ally – for orchestrating what he says is a campaign aimed at toppling the government.

Erogan has held emergency meetings with the head of the Turkish secret intelligence agency, Hakan Fidan, since the recordings emerged, Turkish media has reported. The prime minister's office has issued a statement threatening legal action against anyone who circulated them.

The main opposition Republican People's party (CHP) has demanded that Erdogan resign. Speaking at a party meeting on Tuesday, the CHP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said there was little doubt about the authenticity of the recordings and that the government had lost its legitimacy.

"Take your helicopter and flee, go abroad, or resign from the prime ministry. Someone who robs the country cannot sit in the seat of a prime minister," he said.

Devlet Bahceli, head of the right-wing National Movement party (MHP), used equally damning words in local election rally speech on Tuesday: "This is a very critical moment for Turkey. Hunger, injustice, immorality, corruption and bribery are amongst Turkey's main problems. This is the image we have of eleven years of [the AKP's rule].

He said: "There are signs that the prime minister is at the head of corruption in Turkey. The prime minister speaks of a plot. If it really is a lie and a plot, it should be proven to the people. But if any of this is true, he cannot remain prime minister for even one second longer. The prosecution has to act."

Others in the opposition, however, cautioned against action that would plunge Turkey further into chaos. The co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy party, Selahattin Demirtas, said that all responsible parties should be brought to justice.

"The only things the prime minister should do is to let justice take its course. You might not save yourself, but you might save this country, with more transparency and more democracy."

---------------------------------------

New York Times

TURKS ARE GLUED TO A SENSATIONAL DRAMA,

THIS ONE POLITICAL

ISTANBUL — Turks have always loved a good soap opera. Years ago the fixation was “Dallas,” and Turks of a certain age still refer to a woman who drinks too much as Sue Ellen, the boozy character on that show. More recently, the Turkish drama “The Magnificent Century,” about palace intrigue and romance in an Ottoman sultan’s harem, became an obsession here and in the Middle East.

Currently, though, the show to watch is Turkey’s own political crisis, set off by a corruption scandal that has played out like a serial drama through the steady flow of leaked telephone conversations. The most sensational one was released Monday night, an apparently wiretapped conversation in which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, worried about an investigation closing in, is heard telling his son to get tens of millions of dollars out of the house.

Mr. Erdogan’s office has dismissed this latest bombshell disclosure as a fabrication. But it has inevitably heightened the sense of crisis that has enveloped Turkey since the corruption scandal burst into public view in mid-December with a series of dawn raids on the homes and offices of associates of Mr. Erdogan.

The crisis has damaged Turkey’s already troubled economy. The currency tumbled again on Tuesday while opposition lawmakers called — and not for the first time — for the government to step down, with one official saying Mr. Erdogan should either resign or flee the country “by helicopter.”

For many Turks, the disclosures represented just the latest episode of a continuing, and opaque, national obsession, one that played out Monday night in predictable fashion. Social media went into overdrive — along with government censors, apparently, as the original leak suddenly became unavailable to many Internet users here — while the mainstream Turkish news media stayed largely silent.

Mr. Erdogan did not stay silent, though. His office quickly released a statement saying, “Phone recordings published on the Internet that are alleged to be between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son are a product of an immoral montage that is completely false.”

The statement promised that legal action would be taken. “Those who framed this dirty plot against the prime minister of the Turkish Republic will be held responsible within the law,” it said. Adding to the suspense, Mr. Erdogan went on to hold a late-night meeting with his spy chief and his interior minister.

The Turkish public was left to wonder what would come next, given the aggressive steps the government had already taken to contain the crisis. So far Ankara has purged thousands of police officers and hundreds of prosecutors and passed new laws permitting censorship of the Internet and increasing government control over the judiciary — both of which have attracted widespread condemnation abroad.

The corruption inquest represents the greatest challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s power in more than a decade. While it has been cast by the government as a conspiracy mounted by followers of the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania, Mr. Gulen himself has strongly denied any involvement.

However, most analysts say his adherents are entrenched within the Turkish state, where they are in a position to do a great deal of damage if they so choose. The crisis actually stems, many say, from a fallout between Mr. Gulen and Mr. Erdogan, who were once allies in the current Islamist governing coalition.

Now that they are warring, many Turks say they are caught in the middle of a power struggle.

“There is no way of knowing whether the tapes are real or fake,” said Ince Unaldi, who works in a women’s clothing boutique in the affluent Etiler district of Istanbul, after listening to the latest leak. “We are being dragged into a war of two very dark forces.”

In a statement, the Rumi Forum, a Washington-based center for interfaith cooperation of which Mr. Gulen is honorary chairman, said on Tuesday night that “Mr. Gulen has no connection whatsoever with any phone tapping, including that of the prime minister and his son that was revealed yesterday.”

For many Turks the scandal, and the manner in which it has unfolded, have become something of a preoccupation. On Tuesday, after spending Monday night riveted by the latest leak, Kaya Genc, a novelist and essayist who lives in Istanbul, was up against a deadline for an essay he is writing for the Paris Review. But he was glued to his television set, watching Mr. Erdogan speak to lawmakers from his Justice and Development Party in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

For Mr. Genc, the situation, and his inability to focus on his work amid the drumbeat of scandal, brought to mind a quote from the famous Turkish novelist Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, whose 1960s-era comic novel “The Time Regulation Institute” was recently published in English: “Turkey does not allow its children to care for anything besides its own problems.”

He added: “It’s like a TV series they watch after hours. In the morning, they come to their senses and say, ‘What was that all about?’ But in the evening it is entertainment. ‘The Magnificent Century’ is the only thing that rivals these things.”

On Monday night Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a research organization, was reading a book and trying to unplug from social media for one evening. But the electricity went out, and with nothing else to do he got on Twitter and saw the uproar over the latest leak.

“I was shocked, like everyone else,” he said. “My first reaction was I was scared about the repercussions this will have.”

He added, “If this is real, this will lead to even more decreased trust in Turkish society,” particularly in the judicial system.

With several elections on the horizon, beginning with a vote for municipal leaders in March, most Turks are bracing for even more startling revelations.

Everyone, it seems, is waiting for compromising sex tapes to emerge, a tawdry phenomenon with a history in Turkish politics, especially at election time. Already, sex tapes supposedly involving high-level officials have been delivered to some news organizations, which, for now, have shown restraint. It is probably only a matter of time before they begin showing up on social media.

On Tuesday night, thousands of protesters gathered in the Istanbul neighborhood of Kadikoy, on the Asian side of the city, chanting for the government to resign. They were dispersed with tear gas and water cannon.

After weeks of scandal, however, many here say they have simply become desensitized.

“I was not even surprised when I heard the conversation between Erdogan and his son,” said Aziz Burak Kanduz, 25, who works in the film industry in Istanbul. “It’s almost a state of numbness. As a society, we are going backwards, big time.”

---------------------------------------

Christian Science Monitor

ERDOGAN DISPUTES RECORDING LINKING HIM

TO TURKEY'S CORRUPTION PROBE

Once-unassailable Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has been battered by political scandal for months. The latest allegation is he hid money from a corruption probe.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / February 25, 2014

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today fought back against yet another political scandal, claiming that wiretap recordings allegedly of him him telling his son to move large sums of cash to evade a corruption probe were “unscrupulously fabricated.”

While refuting the allegations in a speech to his ruling party group in parliament today Mr. Erdogan also decried the widespread wire-tapping of senior officials in Turkey. He was trying to head off the latest twist in a graft probe that has already prompted the resignation of three ministers and the government reassignment of hundreds of prosecutors and thousands of police officers.

"This is not an attack on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the AK Party, but an attack on the Turkish Republic,” the prime minister said.

The stakes are high for Erdogan, whose Justice and Development (AK) Party has governed for 11 years with an ever-increasing majority. Local elections on March 30 are seen as a measure of support after widespread protests last June. Since, Turkish financial markets have been battered and the currency has slumped, and that was even before the graft probe reached far into government.

Raids in Istanbul and Ankara in December put more than 50 people in detention after a yearlong surveillance operation to track alleged corruption in land development and other misdeeds. Polls indicate some impact on the prime minister's popularity, though his party base appears to have so far remained strong.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is taking advantage of the explosive allegations. Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu played the recordings in a meeting of CHP lawmakers today, and predicted that "new things will be disclosed soon." Mr. Kilicdaroglu said: “My advice to you: Either you take a helicopter and flee abroad or you resign,” said Mr. Kilicdaroglu.

Earlier he had repeated his call for the Erdogan government to step down, and said that Turkey could not progress with “this dirt.”

The recordings are alleged to be conversations between Erdogan and his son, Bilal, from Dec. 17, the day the corruption probe was launched as police raided the houses of some ministers’ sons and ranking businessmen and made arrests. Shoeboxes full of hundreds of thousands of dollars were found in the home of one state bank director.

In the alleged calls, Erdogan appears to alert his son to the raids and asks him to dispose of cash from the family home with the help of his sister and other relatives to bring all cash to “zero” by distributing it to associates. In a follow up call, Bilal supposedly tells his father that 30 million Euros ($40 million) have yet to be moved. The government has blamed a “parallel state” of followers in the judiciary and police working for the US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was once a close ally of Erdogan, for the leaks.

"They went and made a shameless montage and released it," said Erdogan of the recording. "They are even listening to the state's encrypted telephones. That's how low they are."

Two pro-government Turkish newspapers claimed this week that 7,000 phones have been tapped, including those of many senior government officials. Erdogan said today that even his encrypted calls with President Abdullah Gul had been hacked.

"We will reveal one-by-one all the disgraces of the parallel organization and we will make those who walk with them so embarrassed they won't be able to go out into the street," said Erdogan. "The lobby of those who couldn't win the people's support, the mob of losers came together once more on December 17. Now they are saying 'we are going to rule Turkey."

The 11-minute audio was posted on YouTube late Monday, garnering 1.5 million views by this morning. It was later taken down at Turkish government request, but its contents spread widely on social media, and it was played over loudspeakers at a protest rally tonight in Istanbul. Police reportedly used tear gas and water canon to break up the protest.

It is not yet possible to confirm the authenticity of the recording. But Turkey’s chief prosecutor has started an investigation into the leak of the alleged telephone conversation to find out how it was made, and whether any wiretaps were legally authorized or not.

The opposition CHP leader claimed that his party had confirmed the authenticity of the recordings, and that they were as “solid as Mt. Ararat” – the mountain in eastern Turkey where legend holds that the Biblical Noah’s Ark came to rest after the flood.

---------------------------------------

Le Devoir, Canada

LE PREMIER MINISTRE TURC SOUS ENQUETE POUR CORRUPTION



Ankara — Le premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan est sous enquête pour corruption, ont rapporté des médias officiels mardi, au moment où les partis d'opposition réclament la démission de son gouvernement.



Le procureur en chef de la capitale, Ankara, a ouvert une enquête après la diffusion de bandes audio où on entendrait M. Erdogan et son fils s'entendre pour faire disparaître de vastes sommes d'argent dans le cadre d'une enquête pour corruption, selon ce que rapporte l'agence Anadolu.



M. Erdogan a rencontré le chef des services de renseignement turcs peu après que la bande audio ait commencé à circuler en ligne lundi. Les voix discutent de comment se débarasser d'importantes sommes d'argent dans une résidence inconnue.



Le bureau de M. Erdogan a plus tard publié un communiqué dans lequel il affirme que les enregistrements ont été fabriqués. Il promet que les responsables seront traînés en justice.



On ne sait pas si l'enquête porte sur l'authenticité des bandes ou sur de possibles gestes criminels.



Plus tôt mardi, le leader de la formation d'extrême-droite Part d'action nationaliste, Devlet Bahceli, s'était dit «estomaqué» par les enregistrements. Il avait ensuite demandé l'intervention des procureurs et d'autres agences judiciaires.



Le principal parti d'opposition turc, le Parti républicain du peuple, prétend avoir vérifié l'authenticité des enregistrements de «trois ou quatre façons» et a demandé à M. Erdogan de démissionner ou «de s'enfuir [de la Turquie] en hélicoptère».



M. Erdogan s'en est pris aux ennemis turcs et étrangers qui, selon lui, conspirent pour faire chuter son gouvernement et a répété que les enregistrements étaient des faux.



«C'est un acte de trahison contre le premier ministre», a-t-il dit.



L'Associated Press n'a pu vérifier l'authenticité des enregistrements, qui auraient été effectués le 17 décembre, au moment où les fils de trois ministres étaient détenus et interrogés dans une affaire de corruption.



Par Suzan Fraser

---------------------------------------

Le Monde

LA TURQUIE SECOUEE PAR UN SCANDALE D'ECOUTES TELEPHONIQUES

L'opposition turque a appelé le premier ministre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, à quitter le pouvoir après la révélation, lundi 24 février, d'un enregistrement le mettant en cause dans un vaste scandale de corruption. Dans cette bande sonore dont l'authenticité n'a pas été confirmée, M. Erdogan demande à son fils aîné Bilal de réunir d'autres membres de la famille pour faire disparaître immédiatement plusieurs millions d'euros et de dollars dissimulés aux domiciles de proches.

Le cabinet de M. Erdogan a vigoureusement réagi lundi soir en dénonçant dans un communiqué le « produit immoral d'un montage (...) complètement faux », et en menaçant de poursuivre ses auteurs devant la justice. L'enregistrement a agité toute la nuit les réseaux sociaux, d'autant qu'il est sorti quelques heures après les révélations de deux journaux proches du régime islamo-conservateur accusant des magistrats, proches de la confrérie du prédicateur musulman Fethullah Gülen, d'avoir mis sur écoute des milliers de personnes, dont M. Erdogan.

DES MUNICIPALES SOUS TENSION

« Ce qui est fait constitue une attaque haineuse contre le Premier ministre de la république de Turquie. Personne ne peut s'en tirer de cette manière », a déclaré M. Erdogan mardi lors de son allocution hebdomadaire devant les députés de son Parti de la justice et du développement (AKP). « Jamais nous ne cèderons », a-t-il continué sous les ovations énergiques des militants de sa formation, renvoyant ses accusateurs et les critiques aux élections municipales du 30 mars prochain. « Seul le peuple peut décider de nous renvoyer, et personne d'autre », a-t-il martelé.

« Il n'existe aucune allégation à laquelle nous ne pouvons répondre », a continué M. Erdogan, indiquant n'avoir « peur de rien » et promettant de poursuivre en justice les auteurs de ce « montage ».

« TRÈS CONSTERNANT »

A l'issue du conseil des ministres, lundi, le porte-parole du gouvernement, Bülent Arinç, a confirmé les allégations devant la presse. « Il s'agit malheureusement d'un événement très consternant », a déclaré M. Arinç, « ces procureurs doivent publiquement s'excuser auprès de toutes les personnes qu'ils ont mises sur écoute ».

L'un des deux procureurs mis en cause a catégoriquement nié avoir ordonné la moindre des écoutes. « Ces allégations sont dénuées de tout fondement. Aucune opération illégale n'a été ordonnée », a ainsi affirmé le magistrat, Adnan Cimen, au journal Milliyet, sans autre précision. Dans une déclaration citée par des médias proches de la confrérie, un des avocats de M. Gülen, Nurullah Albayrak, a lui aussi démenti les allégations « injustes » : « Cette situation n'a d'autre but que d'inciter à la haine et à la division. »

Selon les médias proches de M. Erdogan, l'existence de ces « bretelles » a été découverte par les procureurs récemment nommés par le gouvernement pour prendre en main la direction des enquêtes anticorruption à l'origine du scandale, après une vague de purges historiques dans la justice et la police.