Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Sunday that he would survive a corruption crisis surrounding his cabinet, saying those seeking his overthrow would fail just as mass anti-government protests did last summer.
Erdogan accused his opponents of trying to sap the country’s power and of being in the service of an international plot cloaked as criminal proceedings.
This past Friday, thousands of Turks demanding that Erdogan step down clashed with riot police in central Istanbul. The trouble recalled protests this year that began over development plans for the city’s Gezi Park but that broadened into complaints of authoritarianism under Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, also known as the AK Party.
“They said ‘Gezi’ and smashed windows. Now they say ‘corruption’ and smash windows. These conspiracies will not succeed,” Erdogan told a cheering crowd in western Manisa province. “Their concern is not corruption, law or justice. Their only concern is damaging this nation’s power.”
Erdogan’s allegations of a foreign hand in the affair have put the focus on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who preaches from self-imposed exile in the United States and whose Gulen movement claims at least 1 million followers in Turkey, including senior police officials and judges.
Erdogan has hinted strongly that Gulen deserves blame in the scandal.
Read more: Erdogan vows graft scandal in Turkey won’t topple him - The Washington Post
Erdogan accused his opponents of trying to sap the country’s power and of being in the service of an international plot cloaked as criminal proceedings.
This past Friday, thousands of Turks demanding that Erdogan step down clashed with riot police in central Istanbul. The trouble recalled protests this year that began over development plans for the city’s Gezi Park but that broadened into complaints of authoritarianism under Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, also known as the AK Party.
“They said ‘Gezi’ and smashed windows. Now they say ‘corruption’ and smash windows. These conspiracies will not succeed,” Erdogan told a cheering crowd in western Manisa province. “Their concern is not corruption, law or justice. Their only concern is damaging this nation’s power.”
Erdogan’s allegations of a foreign hand in the affair have put the focus on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who preaches from self-imposed exile in the United States and whose Gulen movement claims at least 1 million followers in Turkey, including senior police officials and judges.
Erdogan has hinted strongly that Gulen deserves blame in the scandal.
Read more: Erdogan vows graft scandal in Turkey won’t topple him - The Washington Post
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