The picture that Turkey presents today is one of chaos and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Revelations that are appearing almost every hour point to a wider and deeper crisis on the horizon.<\/p>\n
The seriousness of corruption allegations and lawlessness in the country are matched only by the speed the government seems to be losing its legitimacy.<\/p>\n
On Monday, two pro-government newspapers, Star and Yeni Safak published a list of seven thousand prominent people in the country that were illegally wire-tapped. The government blamed some members of the judiciary loyal to what it calls the parallel state apparatus, meaning those aligned with its Islamist rival Fethullah G\u00fclen.<\/p>\n
Later on the day, a new voice recording hit the internet. What sounded like the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talking to his son Bilal, giving him instructions on how to hide large amounts of funds was said to be recorded on the day the corruption scandal broke out, the 17th<\/sup> of December last year.<\/p>\n The website publishing the allegations was quickly taken down but the damage was done. As the Prime Minister summoned the head of the Turkish Intelligence organisation MIT for an urgent meeting, the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party\u2019s Central Executive Board gathered for an emergency session.<\/p>\n The office of the Prime Minister released a strongly-worded statement denying such a conversation took place between Erdogan and his son.\u00a0 Calling it a \u201cdirty plot\u201d, the statement said the voices were montaged and completely false and those responsible would be sued.<\/p>\n The opposition called the Justice and Development Party government to resign immediately.<\/p>\n Early responses from the government and its supporters in the media are defiant but many questions remain unanswered.<\/p>\n With every passing hour, the picture is getting bleaker and country tenser.<\/p>\n National currency the lira has dropped sharply against the dollar after the new voice recordings emerged.<\/p>\n As we wait to hear the Prime Minister Erdogan and the opposition leaders Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Devlet Bahceli to speak in their party groups about the allegations, it is too early to predict what the next 24 hours might bring.<\/p>\n But one thing is for sure. Turkey this morning increasingly resembles a near-failed state than a powerful regional leader.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The picture that Turkey presents today is one of chaos and uncertainty. Revelations that are appearing almost every hour point to a wider and deeper crisis on the horizon. The seriousness of corruption allegations and lawlessness in the country are matched only by the speed the government seems to be losing its legitimacy. On Monday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}