News Scan for Turkey, May 15th 2016

Turkish portfolio outflows hit highest this year on political worries

Foreign investors have sold $459 million worth of Turkish stocks and bonds so far this month, in the largest portfolio outflow this year as political concerns have grown, the Central Bank said on May 12. Outflows totaled $298 million from the stock market and $161 million from the domestic bond market in the week ending on May 6, a day after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said he would quit after a public rift emerged with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

 “The Central Bank data show that, not surprisingly, Davutoğlu’s stepping down triggered portfolio outflows from Turkey,” wrote Yarkın Cebeci of JPMorgan Chase in Istanbul. “The total outflow … was the largest in five months.”

Investors, resident overseas, owned $44.1 billion Turkish Liras worth of Turkish equities on May 6, compared with $50.28 billion the week before, the data also showed.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-portfolio-outflows-hit-highest-this-year-on-political-worries.aspx?pageID=238&nID=99135&NewsCatID=344

Britain ‘vulnerable to ISIS terrorists’ if Turkey join the EU, claims Theresa Villiers

TURKEY joining the European Union is almost “inevitable” and will make Britain more vulnerable to Islamic State terrorists, a Cabinet minister has warned.

Villiers claims 600 IS fighters who have returned to Turkey will soon enjoy visa-free travel

Theresa Villiers claims 600 IS fighters who have returned to Turkey will soon enjoy visa-free travel starting from the border with Syria and Iraq up to the English Channel.

The Northern Ireland Secretary also revealed she planned to quit the Cabinet had the Prime Minister not relaxed collective responsibility to allow her to campaign for Brexit.

She was an MEP for six years, and said this helped form her view that Brussels was “unreformable”.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/670333/britain-vulnerable-isis-terrorists-turkey-join-EU-theresa-villiers

Dissidents in Turkey’s nationalist opposition blame AKP for legal limbo

Dissidents in Turkey’s nationalist opposition accused the government on Saturday of interfering in an internal party dispute that could end up jeopardizing President Tayyip Erdogan’s plans for more power. Several hundred members of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have launched a bid to oust Devlet Bahceli, leader for much of the last two decades, and to do so they need to change party rules at a special congress they want to hold on Sunday.

Four leaders of the revolt, including former interior minister Meral Aksener, issued a statement accusing Erdogan’s AK Party of intervening to try to block the special congress.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-politics-nationalists-idUSKCN0Y50EU

Turkish investors to build at least 10 hotels in Iran

Turkish investors are going to build at least 10 hotels in Iran as a part of an agreement signed between Turkey and Iran during Culture and Tourism Minister Mahir Ünal’s official visit to Tehran. The number of flights between the two countries is also set to increase in order to attract more Iranian tourists to Turkey.

According to Culture and Tourism Ministry representatives, Ünal met with Iranian Vice President Masoud Soltanifar while representatives from the Turkish tourism sector met with Iranian counterparts in Tehran to discuss investment and cooperation opportunities. Ünal’s entourage included representatives from the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB), the Turkish Tourism Investors Association (TYD), the Hotel Association of Turkey (TUROB) and the Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TÜROFED). As a result of bilateral meetings the two leaders signed the 4th Tourism Cooperation Technical Committee Meeting Protocol.

http://www.dailysabah.com/economy/2016/05/14/turkish-investors-to-build-at-least-10-hotels-in-iran

Deniz Gamze Ergüven: ‘For women in Turkey it’s like the middle ages’

Not too long after the film Mustang was released in Turkey last October, its director and co-writer, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, was interviewed by the Nobel prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk. “He was curious about how I’d lived through its reception,” she says, with a characteristically wide-eyed smile. “Well, I was gloomy. I explained how I’d been attacked. I’d had some very aggressive, negative critiques there [in Turkey], the kind of thing I hadn’t received anywhere else. So I loved his response. First of all, he said that lots of people around him had seen it, and liked it. Then he said: ‘But you will be attacked.’ And he explained why. After all, he knows: he’s had plenty of violent criticism himself. ‘Don’t get depressed,’ he told me. What he was saying was: keep going.”

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/15/deniz-gamze-erguven-mustang-turkey-interview-rachel-cooke

“Child abuse scandal” in Turkey’s Nizip refugee camp

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some European Union officials have visited the refugee camp near the Syrian border on April 23, which marks the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. Turkey has been the “best example in the world of how to treat refugees” European Council President Donald Tusk has said after the visit.

The same AFAD-led refugee camp which was praised by EU officials has been struck by “sexual assault” against young boys and the scandal “dured for three months” according to the report by Erk Acarer, from daily BirGün. Parents of some eight refugee boys amongst 30 have made a complaint and AFAD did not hear about the scandal which occured around September 2015, said the report.

http://www.dha.com.tr/child-abuse-scandal-in-turkeys-nizip-refugee-camp_1224183.html

This is a news-scan from major Turkish papers and internet sites. However, we do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.

15.05.2016
compiled by Editor BTT