Tag: Meral Ak?ener

?Y? (Good) Party leader and presidential candidate Meral Ak?ener has said her party does not oppose any cross-border operation against terrorism, while warning that such operations must not be “instrumentalized for domestic political benefits.” “We would not question the Turkish state’s measures aiming to eliminate or prevent terrorist organizations. We would certainly support such a decision. However, nothing in either foreign politics or the struggle against terror should become material for domestic politics,” Ak?ener said in a televised interview on broadcaster NTV late on June 13. The military is currently carrying out an operation into the Kandil Mountains region in northern Iraq, where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has its main headquarters and training camps. “Unfortunately these issues are being made into subjects of domestic politics. The struggle against terror cannot be done by celebrations. An operation into Kandil could further raise the number of martyrs in the region” Ak?ener said. PKK, Turkey, politics, elections, Meral Ak?ener

So when a newish soccer team that he is overtly promoting lost 2-0 to Galatasaray — one of the country’s big three teams — in a Turkish Super League match on Sunday, his opponents reacted with glee. Cemal, a prominent opposition columnist and die-hard Galatasaray fan, tweeted: “This victory is in a different league.” An angry Erdogan supporter riposted, “Recep Tayyip Erdogan will score the real goal in the 2019 [presidential] election.” The lineup on both sides broadly mirrored the deepening polarization in Turkey, with the conservative Islamic values Basaksehir on one side, and Galatasaray — a team favored by the pro-secular, urban elite and middle classes — on the opposite. Galatasaray is also supported by millions of Kurds because the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is a big fan. At the end of the fixture, thousands of Galatasaray fans began chanting, “We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers,” referring to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. But for now, that’s a long shot. The match was soaked in politics from the minute Erdogan pulled up at his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Basaksehir branch a day before the game took place. “We want Basaksehir to aim for the championship in the politics league just as in the soccer league,” he said. He then proceeded to scold officials for failing to secure a big enough audience at games played at the Basaksehir stadium. It was rebranded in 2014 as Basaksehir Medipol and was infused with cash, allegedly by Erdogan's businessmen cronies. Many of its streets were named after Muslim thinkers.