September 7, 2014

13 questions to the president

Veysel Ayhan

1. Mr. President, you attended the closing ceremony of the International Turkish Olympiad in June last year. "I congratulate our dear teachers who dedicate their lives to the promotion of the Turkish language and Turkey's bid for peace," you said, before proceeding to direct praise at the Hizmet movement and Mr. Fethullah Gülen -- who inspired that movement -- for some 25 minutes. What is the reason that we don't know, other than the graft and bribery investigations of Dec. 17 and 25, 2013, that urged you to make a U-turn and start to demonize the same Hizmet movement?

US law professor: Erdoğan's talk of Gülen extradition ‘foolishness'

Jim Harrington, a US human rights attorney and University of Texas professor, has said that any talk of asking the United States to extradite Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey is “foolish, absurd and self-serving.”

Will the CHP be able to fill the void?

Mümtazer Türköne

The Republican People's Party (CHP) congress, which convened on Friday in Ankara, is one of the indicators that things are not going well in the party. The CHP is not a homogenous party; it is rather a coalition of two parties or political wings. For this reason, intra-party struggle is just normal; but still, as the main opposition party, the CHP seems to be in decline.