NEWS SCAN for Turkey – Aug 10th, 2013
Down below you will find a summary of topics from major Turkish papers and internet sites
Retired General sentenced to life asks PM & chief of staff to voice reaction against court ruling
Chief of General Staff Gen İlker Başbuğ wrote in his letter to a newspaper “Will the commander, who holds the position of chief of General Staff, keep his silence on this issue, to which Mr. Prime Minister already reacted to and rejected?”
Retired Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ asked the current officeholder, Necdet Özel, whether he would remain silent about the convictions given to him and other generals in the Turkish military, and criticized Parliament for failing to prevent the verdicts by making the necessary legal amendments despite the prime minister’s earlier remarks.
Başbug also wrote “It should not be forgotten that chief of General Staff is the commander of the Turkish Armed Forces. He has to protect this institution against unfair, groundless and harsh attacks. Today will the commander, who holds the position of chief of General Staff, keep his silence on this issue, to which Mr. Prime Minister already reacted to and rejected?” addressing Özel.
Turkish Foreign Ministry warn citizens not to travel to Lebanon
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has warned citizens against non-essential travel to Lebanon and called those already in the country to return home after gunmen abducted a Turkish Airlines captain and his assistant pilot in Beirut on Friday.
Lebanese media said that a group claimed responsibility for the abduction in the name of nine Lebanese Shiite Muslims kidnapped near the Turkish-Syrian border last year, saying the two Turks would be freed if the Lebanese captives were released.
Following the incident, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said he had spoken with the Lebanese prime minister about the abductions.
Turkish main opposition leader says specially authorized courts ‘illegitimate’
Specially authorized courts do not have any legitimacy, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that he did not recognize rulings by them.
He was apparently referring to a recent controversial ruling by a specially authorized court that convicted a former top commander and more than 250 other people on charges of attempting to overthrow the government of Turkey.
“Specially authorized courts do not exist in democracies. Rulings made by specially authorized courts are not legitimate in democracies. The judiciary needs to be independent and impartial; the judiciary should not be in the hands of the political authority,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in an interview with Doğan news agency Aug. 9 in the eastern Anatolian province of Tunceli, his hometown, where he was observing Eid al-Fitr.
Turkish banks enjoy high profits
Turkey’s deposit banks’ first half profits rose to $5.4 billion with a 22.4 percent increase. State banks also posted high profits in the same period
Deposit banks’ net profits rose from 8.5 billion liras to 10.4 billion liras in the first half, according to BIST data.
The deposit banks traded on Bourse Istanbul (BIST) posted 10.4 billion Turkish Liras ($5.4 billion) of net profit in the first half of this year, a 22.4 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
The banks traded on BIST, the exchange body, raised their net profits from 8.5 billion liras to 10.4 billion liras in this period.
10.08.2013
SOURCE: MEDIA
We do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.
