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16 More Arrested as Corruption Inquiry in Turkey Widens
Turkish Premier Blames United States for Turmoil
(about 11 hours later)
ISTANBUL — A fast-moving corruption inquiry into the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan widened Saturday with the arrests of two sons of ministers, the general manager of state-owned Halkbank, and 13 others in connection with allegations of corruption and bribery.
ISTANBUL — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday continued his embrace of what has traditionally been the strategy of Turkish politicians facing a crisis: blame foreign powers, in this case the United States.
The arrests came a day after 49 people, including the mayor of an Istanbul district, were referred to court for arrest. The suspects are accused of various corruption charges including bribery, gold smuggling and violating zoning laws.
On Saturday morning, four pro-government newspapers featured the American ambassador on their front pages, suggesting that the United States, a strong ally of Turkey, was behind an escalating corruption investigation that has ensnared several businessmen and others in the prime minister’s inner circle. One headline said, “Get out of this country.” Other media reports also suggested a plot by Israel.
The government has responded with its own counterstroke, dismissing 14 more high-ranking police officials as it continues to purge the state of those it believes are pushing the investigation, which Mr. Erdogan and his top party officials consider a plot.
Then in a series of speeches on Saturday, Mr. Erdogan threatened to expel foreign ambassadors for what he called “provocative actions.”
The investigation is widely regarded as being controlled by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a powerful Muslim preacher who lives in Pennsylvania and commands a network of businessmen, media outlets and schools as well as officials within Turkey’s police and judiciary.
Mr. Erdogan did not specifically mention the United States, but referring to unnamed “ambassadors” he said, “We are not compelled to keep you in our country.”
The case, which has riveted the country and dominated the newspaper headlines and television talk shows all week, also played out in smaller ways on Friday: Turkish Airlines, which is partly owned by the state, reportedly removed from its flights newspapers that are affiliated with Mr. Gulen.
“If our ambassadors in your countries were involved in these kinds of games, tell us,” he continued. “You do not need to send them away. We would take them back. We would take back our own ambassadors.”
Mr. Gulen has denied having involvement in the case and has strongly criticized the removal of police officers that participated in the investigation.
In response to the newspaper headlines — but before Mr. Erdogan spoke — the American Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, posted several messages in Turkish on its Twitter account.
“Those who don’t see the thief but go after those trying to catch the thief, who don’t see the murder but try to defame others by accusing innocent people - let God bring fire to their houses, ruin their homes, break their unities,” he said in video recording publishing on his website on Friday.
“The United States has no involvement in the ongoing corruption probe,” one said.
The corruption inquiry has now ensnared sons of government ministers, municipal workers and businessmen, including a powerful construction tycoon. The moves in recent days — by Mr. Erdogan’s government and his Justice and Development Party to contain the investigation, and by prosecutors and the police to advance it — came as Turkey braced for a cabinet reshuffle that some opposition lawmakers demanded and that the local news media suggested was imminent.
“All allegations in news stories are lies and slander,” another said.
The investigation began Tuesday morning with a series of raids on the offices of businessmen and others close to the governing party. Mr. Erdogan’s government says it is a plot against its rule by a “criminal gang” within the state and has swiftly responded by purging senior police officials who have led the investigation.
Trying to tamp down tensions with an important ally, a spokesman for Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the ministry had accepted the embassy’s statement as “sufficient,” and that there was no effort to expel the American ambassador, Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., or to summon him to a special meeting, as some Turkish media reports said Saturday.
On Thursday, the Istanbul police chief, Huseyin Capkin, was fired, and at least 34 officers have been dismissed or transferred by the Interior Ministry this week. In addition to the 14 police officials who took part in the dawn raids and were dismissed on Friday, the deputy chief of the Financial Investigation Commission was discharged.
The conspiracy theories advanced by the pro-government media — which resonate with certain segments of the population because both anti-American sentiments and anti-Semitism are widespread in Turkey — center on the fact that one of the targets of the investigation, the state-owned bank Halkbank, has in the past been accused by the United States of helping Iran evade sanctions over its nuclear program.
Mr. Erdogan called the investigation a foreign-backed plot to topple his government ahead of a crucial election year and said those behind it were trying to form “a state within a state,” an indirect reference to Mr. Gulen and his network of followers who have positions in the government.
The widening inquiry has unfolded over several days and has quickly become a political crisis for Mr. Erdogan, perhaps the worst he has faced in more than a decade in power. Commentators and government officials have linked the investigation to a popular imam who lives in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen, whose network of followers are said to have taken up high-level positions in the Turkish police and judiciary over the years.
Mr. Gulen, who rarely gives interviews, released a statement through his lawyer denying any involvement in the investigation.
Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gulen, who represent different Islamic traditions in Turkey, were once allies, and they teamed up to push the military from politics through a series of trials that landed a number of generals and officers in prison in recent years.
Mr. Erdogan held several closed-door meetings in Ankara on Friday that were expected to lead to an announcement of an expansive cabinet reshuffling in coming days, according to Turkish news media reports. His intervention in the inquiry has drawn criticism even from within the Justice and Development Party, suggesting that the Islamist-rooted faction is at risk of breaking away just before the series of elections scheduled over the next 18 months.
Mr. Gulen, who rarely speaks to the news media, denied any involvement in the corruption case in a statement released by his lawyer last week. On Saturday, though, he released an emotionally charged video in which he appeared to denounce the government’s efforts against his supporters, raising the stakes in what has become an epic fight between the two former partners.
In another move familiar to Turks in times of crisis, an influential journalist who had been critical of the government has lost her job. Nazli Ilicak, a veteran journalist, was fired from the pro-government newspaper Sabah after she called on government ministers involved in the inquiry to give up their posts.
At times he waved his arms and in impassioned language said, “May those who don’t see the thief but go after those trying to catch the thief, who don’t see the murder but try to defame others by accusing innocent people — let God bring fire to their houses, ruin their homes, break their unities.”
Turkey has frequently been criticized globally for its crackdown on the news media, and this week, for the second year in a row, the Committee to Protect Journalists identified the country as the No. 1 jailer of journalists. Last summer, during sweeping antigovernment protests that began as opposition to an urban development project in Istanbul, dozens of journalists lost their jobs.
Mr. Erdogan has simultaneously blamed foreigners — as he did during mass protests in the summer against what opponents called his government’s heavy-handed efforts to raze a park — and begun a purge of the police forces, removing dozens of officials said to be involved in the corruption investigation.
And in a business deal that was long in the works, but that nevertheless underscored the close relations between Mr. Erdogan and powerful media and construction bosses, Sabah was sold Friday by one construction company with ties to the prime minister to another.
The inquiry has led to the detentions of dozens of businessmen and officials, as well as the sons of three cabinet ministers. On Saturday, the general manager of Halkbank, the sons of the interior and economy ministers, and 13 others were formally arrested in the case.
The newspaper had been owned by a company whose chief executive is Mr. Erdogan’s son-in-law, and on Friday it was sold to Kalyon Insaat, another company that has close links to the governing party and that is behind several development projects in Istanbul.
