News Scan, 10th March: Turkish PM says graft probe targets peace process
Graft probe targets peace process: Turkish PM
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeated his claim that the “parallel state” is trying to derail the ongoing Kurdish peace process.
Speaking during his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) local election rally in Ağrı, Erdoğan reiterated his rhetoric on the “parallel state,” a term his government coined after the graft probe, hinting at the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is believed to have key influence in the police and judiciary.
Erdoğan has long claimed that the graft probe and corruption allegations were a conspiracy against him and yesterday he said the investigation, which became public on Dec. 17, 2013, was targeting the peace process as well.
“If peace is permanent, Turkey will be unstoppable. Our economy will be unstoppable. They did not want that. That is why they wanted to topple the government and stop the [peace] process. We stood tall against those attacks,” he said, adding that “the country’s brotherhood can never be broken.”
The state has been conducting talks with the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan since late 2012, in a bid to end the decades-old Kurdish conflict in the country.
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS
Turkey holds immense potential for insurers – Sompo Japan Turkey head
Turkey is the right country to invest in for global insurance companies, according to the head of Sompo Japan’s Turkish unit. The major Japanese insurer, which made its entry into emerging Turkey in 2011 via the acquisition of local insurance company Fiba Sigorta, is enjoying above average growth in a booming market.
“Our performance in the past three years shows that investing in Turkey was the right decision. The Turkish insurance market is poised to grow significantly as it is backed by a growing economy and favorable demographics”, Sompo Japan Sigorta CEO Shinobu Arimoto said as he expressed his views on the industry.
“Things went according to plan right from the start for Sompo Japan in Turkey. There is great potential in Turkey’s insurance sector for global companies”, he noted, adding that an expanding economy and a young population were the essentials that multinationals seek when investing in a new market. “Operating in a fast-growing market like Turkey is very valuable experience”, Arimoto said.
Sompo Japan Sigorta grew 36.8 percent in the non-life category in 2012 when the sector average stood at 18.2 percent. The company’s strong growth continued on to the next year as well, as it reached 23.3 percent when compared to industry average of 21.7 percent.
Turkey presents a huge market for global insurance companies with only a limited portion of its population of about 75 million having coverage. The annual figures announced by the Insurance Association of Turkey (TSB) revealed that insurers in Turkey produced a premium total of TRY 24.2 billion (approx. USD 11 billion) last year, up 22 percent when compared to the TRY 19.8 billion generated in 2012.
INVEST.GOV.TR
Hyundai signals new model production in Turkish plant
Aksam – South Korean auto manufacturer Hyundai is considering adding a new vehicle model to its production line in Turkey. The Hyundai Assan plant in Izmit, Kocaeli in northwestern Turkey, established in 1997 as a joint venture with the Turkish Kibar Group, is currently manufacturing the light segment vehicles, i10 and i20, mainly to supply the European market.
Speaking to the Turkish press at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Alan Rusforth, Senior Vice President and COO Hyundai Motor Europe, said that the Intrado concept represented their intention to take a crossover vehicle to the market. “We are working on a small SUV/crossover-type vehicle” Rushforth said, adding that the plant to manufacture the new model was yet to be determined.
Hyundai Assan Chairman, Ali Kibar said that the third vehicle to be manufactured at Izmit plant was likely to be a SUV to be built on existing platforms. “The capacity of the Izmit plant could reach 300,000 units per year with the addition of a new model” Kibar noted. The plant can roll out 210,000 vehicles per year at its current capacity.
Hyundai has invested USD 600 million in its Turkish plant over the last two years to manufacture the i10 hatchback which entered production last September. The Izmit plant is vital to Hyundai’s plans to meet the increasing demand for light segment vehicles in Europe.
INVEST.GOV.TR
Mitsubishi-partnered JV to invest in Turkey’s energy market
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Turkish energy firm, Ata Elektrik, a subsidiary of the Istanbul-based Urundul Group, have signed a cooperation and strategic partnership agreement to jointly invest in Turkey’s booming energy market.
The Japanese side will take over a 50.1 percent stake in Kirklareligaz, an asset of Ata Elektrik, to form a JV and build a gas-fired power plant in the Thracian province of Kirklareli with an installed capacity of 520 megawatts (MW). Scheduled to be operational by 2016, the power plant will be built by a consortium consisting of the contractors Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe Ltd.
The partnership with the Turkish company represents Mitsubishi Power Industries’ 4th investment in an overseas power generation project.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is also a part of the Japanese-French consortium that will build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant on the coast of Sinop, Black Sea.
INVEST.GOV.TR
Popular website moving out of Turkey due to Internet regulations
The founder of the popular Turkish website Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Dictionary) is moving out of Turkey in the wake of the controversial recent Internet bill. Sedat Kapanoğlu, the site’s founder, said it would be “idiocy” to continue running such a website in Turkey.
“We have now the same Internet structure of countries we have been making fun of, such as China or Iran. Running a website like that in Turkey is pretty much an idiocy,” Kapanoğlu said.
With more than 400,000 users, Ekşi Sözlük, a user-run online encyclopedia in the mold of a funnier version of Wikipedia, is one of the country’s most popular websites. It has more than 22 million definitions under around 3 million titles. It has a crew of editors with the authority to remove content that might pose a legal problem for the website or the user.
“Of course, there should be a law [regulating the web]. But there are lots of problems with the latest regulation,” Kapanoğlu said. “The regulation that is called the ‘secure Internet’ means the state decides which websites children can visit, instead of their parents, which is very dangerous.” He added that the law did not require a specialized court and “even the most uninformed judges and prosecutors” could take on cases on the Internet.
Last month, President Abdullah Gül approved the government-passed bill. The new measures allow the president of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) to make decisions on his own initiative to block websites for a privacy violation without seeking permission from a court. The bill will also force Internet providers to keep records on web users’ activities for two years and make them available to the authorities on demand.
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS
900,000 Syrians take refuge in Turkey: UNICEF
The number of Syrian refugees that have taken shelter in Turkey has approached 900,000, UNICEF says, particularly warning of the problems Syrian children have been facing in exile
The estimated number of Syrian refugees that have taken shelter in Turkey is nearly 900,000, 700,000 of whom are living outside of camps, a U.N. official has said, while noting that the exile has especially affected children.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), working together with the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), is trying to provide education to Syrian children in Turkey.
“The most challenging part so far is how to reach Syrians living out of camps,” UNICEF Representative for Turkey Dr. Ayman A. Abulaban told the Hürriyet Daily News in a recent interview.
In three years of conflict in Syria, 6 million Syrian children, both inside and outside of Syria, have been affected, Abulaban said, noting that more than 10,000 out of 100,000 Syrians killed in the country were children.
UNICEF is seeking to raise awareness on the problems of children who have suffered over the course of the three-year-old civil war.
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS
Erdoğan ‘does not grasp’ separation of powers, MEP says
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan does not seem to understand the importance of the separation of powers, a “cardinal principle of the Copenhagen criteria” that Turkey as a candidate to join the European Union professes to meet, a senior member of the European Parliament has said.
Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament, also accused the prime minister, whom he said was “clearly elected democratically,” of not ruling democratically.
“The principal worry we have is that the separation of powers, which is the basic principle of liberal democracy, of a constitutional government is no longer respected in Turkey,” Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament, said in an interview with private Samanyolu Haber television, aired at the weekend. “And I suspect that it is a thing he himself does not grasp.”
Duff’s remarks came as the European Parliament prepares to vote on a report that criticizes Turkey on drawbacks in freedom of media, excessive violence by the police against last summer’s Gezi Park protesters and, perhaps most notably, on a series of legislative measures the government has taken in the wake of a major investigation into allegations of corruption against politicians and businessmen in his close circle.
TODAYS ZAMAN
In latest tape, Erdogan calls judiciary
Almost every evening since Dec. 17, Turks have been listening to audio recordings leaked on YouTube, starring Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as they are gripped by awe, horror and shock as if watching a thriller series. This aspect of the war between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Gulen community has left us in shame over the state the country has plunged into.
One evening we listen to Erdogan instructing his son, Bilal, to remove huge stashes of cash from family homes. Another evening, we hear him working behind the scene to cancel a defense tender awarded to Koc, the business empire that drew his ire during the Gezi revolt for sheltering protesters in its hotel — that is, we hear the prime minister committing the crime of tenderrigging.
In several consecutive leaks — now widely called the “Hello, Fatih!” series — the prime minister phones a top media executive by the name of Fatih, telling him to censor a broadcast, black out the local election campaign of a leading candidate and fire a talk-show host. Yet another recording reveals he is unhappy with the $10 million amount that a businessman wants to send him through his son, Bilal.
Ironically, a prime minister who has had so many embarrassing or critical conversations wiretapped is trying to turn Turkey into an Orwellian country. Last month, Erdogan passed new restrictions on the Internet through parliament, and after the March 30 local polls, he is planning to pass a law that would give the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) sweeping powers of surveillance, wiretapping and information-gathering over the populace. But the prime minister himself seems to have lived unsuspectingly in a “Big Brother” house, an embarrassing revelation that further discredits the government and the state.
Some of the recordings were obtained legally. The court orders targeted not Erdogan, but people around him. So, when he spoke to those people, he too was wiretapped. Other conversations were illegally wiretapped. Yet, they are so outrageous in exposing how Erdogan flouts the norms of democracy, transparency, good governance, press freedom and the rule of law that their illegality fades to negligible significance in comparison.
The tape posted on YouTube on March 3 was the undisputed number-one hit of the week. Wiretapped illegally in early July 2013, it contains Erdogan’s conversations with then-Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin, in which he seeks to make sure that Turkey’s media giant, Dogan, receives a heavy sentence in an ongoing court case. Dogan remains Turkey’s largest independent media group, even though it was forced to contract under government pressure, with Erdogan known to be bent on destroying the group.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/erdogan-calls-judiciary-tape.html#ixzz2vaJT8vac
Doğan, Sabancı suffer losses, Efes profits surge in ’13
Turkey’s large holdings continued to share company performances for 2013 on Monday, revealing that some saw their profits plummet while others had a more productive year.
Turkish media-to-energy conglomerate Doğan Holding said on Monday that it suffered a loss of TL 38.1 million ($17 million) last year, compared to a net profit of TL 155.7 million a year earlier. Its sales rose 8 percent to TL 3.3 billion. Last year’s loss was led by its media division Doğan Yayın Holding, which showed a loss of TL 187.7 million driven by net financing expenses.
One of Turkey’s largest holdings, Sabancı said on Friday it also suffered a meltdown in profits in 2013. The conglomerate, which is active in finance and energy, said on Friday its 2013 net profit fell 7 percent from a year earlier.
Brewer Anadolu Efes, however, enjoyed a remarkable increase in profits. Efes said its net profit surged to TL 2.61 billion ($1.2 billion) last year from TL 609.8 million a year earlier, reflecting the consolidation of Coca Cola İçecek within the group. Its sales rose 113 percent to TL 9.2 billion in 2013, although the volume of beer sales fell to 7.4 million hectoliters from 8.6 mhl due to contractions in the Turkish and Russian markets.
Calculated with the consolidation of Coca Cola sales, the group’s 2012 sales would have been TL 8.9 billion. Anadolu Efes expects beer sales to drop by low single digits in 2014, but expects higher revenues due to price hikes, said Chief Executive Officer Damien Gammell.
TODAYS ZAMAN
Probe reveals hidden rule of business in Turkey: bribery
Bribery has become a critical rule of the game for many businesspeople carrying out large-scale projects in Turkey, as recently leaked telephone recordings have raised the specter of widespread corruption with top government officials involved in business deals and tenders, observers assert.
The numerous audio recordings leaked since Dec. 17, when a major graft scandal involving prominent public figures close to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to light, reveals that businessmen have paid millions of dollars in bribes promised to government officials in return for favors in public tenders.
Voice recordings regarding Turkuaz Media Group, obtained through legal wiretaps and shared by Twitter user Haramzadeler earlier in February, revealed that the government allegedly collected millions of dollars from businessmen, promising favors in a big government tender to buy the media group.
Cengiz Holding owner Mehmet Cengiz, Kolin İnşaat owner Celal Koloğlu, Limak Holding owner Nihat Özdemir, IC Holding owner İbrahim Çeçen and one unknown businessperson allegedly contributed a total of $100 million each to the pool to buy the media group. Other businesspeople contributed smaller amounts, including Adnan Çebi with $30 million and Hayrettin Özaltın’s sum of $20 million. Çeçen is reportedly willing to give an additional $50 million if he is allowed a favorable place in the third Bosporus Bridge tender. According to the voice recordings, it is unknown whether Muzaffer Nasıroğlu and Abdullah Tivnikli contributed to the pool.
TODAYS ZAMAN
10.03.2014
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.
