News Scan, Jan 1st 2014 – Babacan says Halkbank under attack despite no links with anti-graft operation

Halkbank under attack despite no links with anti-graft operation: Babacan

Speaking on a TV programme, Babacan, Turkey’s deputy PM responsible for economy, made remarks on state-run Halkbank, whose director was detained as part of the anti-graft operation which rattled the country on December 17.

Babacan said Halkbank was the only bank who could do business with Iran, noting that a bank has to comply with all international regulations to be able to do business with the sanctioned country. “A bank has to gain the confidence of both Iran and the US [to do business with Iran]. Halkbank was a bank which followed all these necessities. It is natural that Halkbank was an envied institution,” Babacan said.

Regarding that the bank’s name was mentioned frequently in the anti-graft operation which started on December 17, Babacan said “The bank’s legal entity is attacked over the claims against its director general, although there is no allegation against the bank itself.”

Babacan said, between December 10 and 17, the value of publicly traded companies fell around 50 billion dollars adding that Halkbank alone lost more than two and a half million dollars. “Everybody got negatively affected. Concerning the asset values, the crisis had a significant cost,” said Babacan.

Babacan said the net exit foreign investors made within two weeks amounted to 238 million dollars. “Concerning foreign exchange, a total of 764 million dollars left the country.”

“We predict the current account deficit to be 6.5 percent in 2014”, said Babacan, stressing that there is no possibilty that the Turkish economy will not be able to cope with it. Babacan said Turkey looked at 2014 confidently, but the global factors could be determinant in the eventual developments. The minister also added Turkey’s growth was estimated to be slightly over 3.6 percent at the end of this year.

AA

Tariq Ramadan says Erdoğan should practice what he told Mubarak

Prominent scholar Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of Muslim Brotherhood, has criticized Turkish prime minister for seeking more power and urged him to re-think about staying in power some time more. Ramadan said during his speech at Reviving Islamic Spirit (RIS) Talks in Toronto on Dec. 29, published on YouTube on Tuesday, that Turkey is not the model for all the Muslim majority countries because it has has a specific history.

“And I was critical with that government there, too”, Ramadan said, adding that he said both in Turkey and when he was at the UN that what Erdoğan said to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – that one day he has to know how to leave – “[Erdoğan] also needs to get this right.”

Ramadan stated that having a what he called “very interesting” strategy of going from being a prime minister to be a president is something “you have to think about.” Ramadan was referring to Erdoğan’s plan to shift to the presidential system and his unannounced ambition to lead Turkey as a president.

He noted that sometimes leaders have to understand that being in power is bound to time and that one day they should leave. “Leave, leave, and let the [other] people come,” Ramadan stressed in the speech.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Event of the year:  Gezi protests that let the genie out of the bottle

Today’s Zaman editors voted the Gezi Park protests as the event of 2013, which not only went down in history as the biggest civil protest movement in Turkey but also triggered a process of transformation in Turkish politics that is far from complete.

On May 28, a small group of environmentalists began to camp out in Gezi Park in Taksim Square to prevent its demolition as part of a city redevelopment plan under which the park would be razed for the construction of a replica of an 19th century Ottoman barracks that would house a shopping mall and luxury residences. The peaceful sit-in, which by then had attracted several hundreds, was crushed on the morning of May 31 when police attacked tents in a dawn crackdown, spraying protesters sleeping in tents with tear gas and hitting some of them with gas canisters.

Outraged by the police brutality, people started to flood into Taksim Square but the crowd was different this time; it was not made up of the usual activists but the educated, white-collar citizens, most of whom were taking to the streets for the very first time in their lives to join a civil protest. Yet, the police continued to respond with excessive use of force, triggering heavy clashes in downtown İstanbul that quickly spread to all major cities. In one of the iconic moments of the protests, thousands of people crossed the Bosporus on foot to join the protests on the European side of İstanbul early in the morning of June 1. Later in the afternoon, the police retreated from Taksim, letting tens of thousands of demonstrators enter the closed-off square. That was the beginning of the “occupation” of Gezi Park, until it was cleared again by the police using tear gas, batons and water cannons on June 15. Sporadic clashes continued across Turkey in the following days but they subsided and gradually the Gezi Park protests came to an end.

The toll from the protests, in which 3.5 million people participated in almost all Turkey’s provinces, is high: Five people, including a policeman, were killed; about 8,000 people were injured, some of whom lost an eye after being hit by gas canisters; and about 5,000 people were detained in connection with the protests.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Turkey’s former chief of general staff demands release over PM Erdoğan’s remarks

Former Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, who was sentenced to life in prison as part of the Ergenekon coup plot trial, has filed a petition for his release citing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement that there are “gangs within the state” as proof of his innocence.

İlkay Sezer, the former top soldier’s lawyer, asked in his petition to the Istanbul 13th Court of Serious Crimes that it take into account Erdoğan’s recent statements over the existence of a “gang within state” and find “those who are indeed guilty.”

If the court would have heard Erdoğan as a witness over his statements that a group infiltrated the state, police and judiciary, then it would have been clear who is actually guilty at the present moment, Başbuğ’s lawyer said in his petition to the court.

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Five jailed Kurdish lawmakers apply to Turkey’s Constitutional Court for release

Five jailed lawmakers, including four from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), have applied to the Constitutional Court for their release Dec. 31 after a local court refused to grant their freedom two weeks ago, despite the Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker Mustafa Balbay being freed in similar circumstances earlier this month.

The five lawmakers – BDP deputies İbrahim Ayhan, Selma Irmak, Faysal Sarıyıldız, Gülser Yıldırım, and independent deputy Kemal Aktaş – are detained as part of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) trial.

The jailed deputies’ lawyers have justified their petition by stressing their detention was violating the rights of an elected person and its electors, echoing the top court’s Dec. 4 ruling on Balbay.

“This heavy blow to conducting politics as a member of Parliament cannot be describe as being in line with the requisites of a democratic society,” the petition said.

The rejection of the five ministers’ release by the Diyarbakır courts had angered the BDP. The predominantly Kurdish party slammed the decision, labeling it as “political hostage-taking.”

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

01.01.2014

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.