President: Uber ‘finished’ in Turkey
I S TA N B U L : Uber faces being banned in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the ride hailing app was “finished” on Saturday following an intense lobbying campaign from Istanbul taxi drivers.
Erdogan’s comments, in a late night speech on Friday, here, came after the government agreed new rules that are expected to severely complicate Uber’s operations in Turkey.
Drivers of yellow taxis have over the last months waged an intense campaign to have Uber banned, saying the company is eating into their business without having a proper legal basis for work.
“This thing emerged called Uber or Muber or whatever,” said Erdogan. “But this issue is now finished. It’s over now.”
“Our Prime Minister (Binali Yildirim) made the announcement. We have our system of taxis,” he added.
Yildirim’s government last month issued a directive sharply hiking fines and threatened blacklisting for companies whose vehicles illegally work as taxis.
The official taxi drivers association said at the time the measure would be a major threat to Uber, if it was properly enforced by the traffic police.
Erdogan said while Uber might be popular in some European countries, Turkey was different.
“Why did it (Uber) emerge? Because it was in Europe. But what is Europe to me? We will take the decision ourselves.”
His comments come three weeks ahead of keenly contested presidential and parliamentary elections. Many taxi drivers, though not all, are strong Erdogan supporters and the main taxi associations back him.
After Erdogan spoke, dozens of taxi drivers rallied to support him outside of his private residence in the Uskudar district, said the Dogan news agency.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu backed up Erdogan’s comments, describing Uber as a “unauthorised carrier, in other words a pirate carrier”.
“Turkey is a state of law. We don’t need to say sorry for this. It (Uber) has not been given the authorisation to carry out taxi services,” he said.
The 17,400 official yellow taxis are a pillar of the city’s often patchy transport system, but critics say that poor service and overcharging opened up an opportunity for Uber.
However the taxi drivers slam Uber as “pirates” who are swallowing their incomes in an already tight market.
Uber drivers have been physically attacked and even fired at, but taxi drivers reject being involved in a harassment campaign.
Uber said this week it was committed to working in Turkey “to the end” and ha insisted it was operating within the law.
It has expanded rapidly in Turkey and according to Turkish reports, there are more than 10,000 Uber vehicles, here.