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Turkey PM faces resignation call as 3 ministers quit on graft probe
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Three Turkish ministers resigned over a high-level graft probe, with one of them calling on the prime minister to step down in a major escalation of the biggest scandal to hit the government in years.
After announcing his own resignation, Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar raised the stakes by calling on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to follow suit. It marks the first time the prime minister has faced such a challenge from a minister in his own Justice and Development Party (AKP).
“I am stepping down as minister and lawmaker,” Bayraktar told the NTV television yesterday. “I believe the prime minister should also resign.”
Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Interior Minister Muammer Guler also said yesterday they were quitting.
The sons of both ministers are among the two dozen people who have been charged as part of a wide-ranging bribery and corruption probe that has ensnared close government allies and top businessmen.
Bayraktar’s son was also detained last week, but has not been formally charged and has been released pending trial.
Those caught up in the police raids are suspected of numerous offences including accepting and facilitating bribes for development projects and securing construction permits for protected areas in exchange for money.
Erdogan, who has led Turkey since 2002 as the head of a conservative Islamic-leaning government, has described the probe as “a smear campaign” to undermine Turkey’s ambitions to become a major political and economic power.
In a televised speech yesterday, he did not comment on the ministers’ resignations. Instead, he blamed the probe on “a conspiracy” and “international powers” and insisted the AKP had a clear record.
Observers say the investigation has exposed a rift between Erdogan and former ally Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who lives in the United States and whose movement wields considerable influence in Turkey’s police and judiciary.
Bayraktar said the vast majority of construction projects mentioned in the investigation were carried out with the premier’s approval.
“It’s the prime minister’s natural right to work with or remove whichever minister he would like to,” he told NTV.
The network then cut the live feed that immediately raised a stir on Twitter, with critics slamming it as censorship.
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