Erdogan tells Merkel of anger over asylum

Newspaper staff detained

ANKARA, May 27, (Agencies): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his disapproval to German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her country’s reportedly giving asylum to people accused of links to last year’s failed coup, he said in an interview published Saturday.

“We brought to the agenda the putschist soldiers whose asylum applications have been accepted and gave a firm reaction,” Erdogan said, referring to his meeting with Merkel on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday.

“We asked: ‘How can you do this?’” Erdogan said, quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper.

Since the coup attempt, dozens of Turkish diplomats and high-ranking officials have sought asylum in Germany as Ankara continues its crackdown on those suspected of links to US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of ordering the coup.

German media reported this month that numerous Turkish military personnel and their families holding diplomatic passports had been granted political asylum.

But Erdogan said Merkel told him asylum approval “was not up

Erdogan

to her”.

Strained

Relations between Berlin and Ankara have been strained since last July’s attempted putsch, but have deteriorated further over several issues including the referendum campaign to expand Erdogan’s powers.

Ties also worsened after Turkey imprisoned Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist with Die Welt, on terror charges in February.

Erdogan hit back at Germany’s “fixation with Deniz”, saying he told Merkel: “I reminded them: ‘You have many Deniz, I gave you these documents’.”

He was referring to 4,000 dossiers which Turkey previously said it gave its Berlin colleagues about “terrorist” suspects in Germany.

Germany’s interior ministry said Friday that 217 of the asylum applications came from Turks holding diplomatic passports while another 220 were from people with passports issued to other government employees and their dependants.

It is not known officially how many have been given asylum or how many are from the military.

EU presents timetable to renew ties:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the European Union had presented Turkey with a new 12-month timetable for renewing their relations, the Hurriyet daily said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters on the return flight from this week’s NATO summit in Brussels, Erdogan was cited by Hurriyet as saying that during the summit, Turkey and the EU had agreed on giving a new impetus to relations and added Turkey’s foreign and EU affairs ministries would work towards the timetable.

Turkey’s relations with the European Union, particularly Germany, have deteriorated sharply after a series of diplomatic rows.

Erdogan was quoted as saying he had put the issue of the visa liberalisation on the agenda during meetings with EU officials, and that Turkish and EU officials would work together on the issue.

Turkey agreed in early 2016 to help curb a flood of migrants into Europe in return for visa-free travel for Turks to Europe and 3 billion euros ($3.35 billion) in EU financial aid. But Brussels first wants Ankara to modify anti-terrorism laws that it says are too broad.

Turkey arrests newspaper staff:

A Turkish court formally arrested two opposition newspaper employees late on Friday, the state-run Anadolu news agency and the newspaper said, as part of a media crackdown that has alarmed rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies.

Last week, Turkey issued arrest warrants for the owner and three employees of the Sozcu newspaper, accusing them of committing crimes on behalf of the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for masterminding last July’s failed coup. Gulen denies the charge.

The two employees arrested were Mediha Olgun, Sozcu’s internet editor, and Gokmen Ulu, its correspondent for the Aegean province of Izmir, said Anadolu and the paper, which is fiercely critical of President Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party.

Since the failed coup, Turkish authorities have shut more than 130 media outlets and a press union says more than 150 journalists have been jailed, raising concerns about media freedom in a country that aspires to join the European Union.

Turkey coup probers find intel weakness:

Turkish lawmakers probing last year’s attempted coup blamed a US-based Muslim cleric’s movement for the events in a long-awaited report in which the MPs also identified “intelligence weaknesses”.

A cross-party commission including the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was set up after a Turkish military faction tried to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last July.

Commission

The head of the commission Resat Petek said Friday the report “clearly and with certainty” found that the Islamic movement led by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind the events of July 15, quoted by state-run news agency Anadolu.

Turkey refers to the movement as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO)”.

The Turkish government accuses Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, of ordering the failed coup.

Erdogan family acquired tanker:

The family of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are owners of a 26.5-million-euro ($29.64-million) oil tanker, which was acquired under a secretive offshore arrangement, a consortium of European news outlets reported Friday.

The Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Spain’s El Mundo, L’Espresso of Italy and the French online site Mediapart are members of European Investigative Collaboration (EIC), a cooperative initiative in investigative journalism.

The outlets began publishing on May 19 an investigation called the “Malta files,” delving into more than 150,000 documents from the Mediterranean tax haven. The Maltese government has said there are no secrets to be found in the cache.

According to Friday’s report, the Erdogan family became owners of an oil tanker called Agdash through companies registered in Malta and on the Isle of Man, a UK tax haven.