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☆ Turkey's Kilicdaroglu exits Erodogan's shadow in election race
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Daren Butler | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

I know the cost of living and the hopelessness of young people," Kilicdaroglu told a rally last week. Even if he prevails, Kilicdaroglu faces challenges keeping an opposition alliance including nationalists, Islamists, secularists and liberals united. Many wonder whether Kilicdaroglu can defeat Erdogan, the country's longest-serving leader, whose campaigning charisma has helped deliver more than a dozen election victories. HEALING OLD WOUNDSBefore entering politics, Kilicdaroglu worked in the finance ministry and then chaired Turkey's Social Insurance Institution for most of the 1990s. "I have been boycotting the elections since 2018 but I will vote for Kemal Kilicdaroglu this time.

It would ensure the central bank's independence and roll back measures such as allowing the cabinet to select its governor. FOREIGN POLICYIt would adopt the slogan of "Peace at Home, Peace in the World" as the cornerstone of Turkey's foreign policy. Judges' willingness to abide by Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights rulings would be considered when evaluating promotions. Measures would be taken to ensure courts quickly implement rulings by the two high courts. It would ensure that pre-trial detentions are the exception, a measure that critics say is abused under Erdogan's rule.

☆ Turkey's Kilicdaroglu exits Erdogan's shadow in election race
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Daren Butler | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

I know the cost of living and the hopelessness of young people," Kilicdaroglu told a rally last week. Many wonder whether Kilicdaroglu can defeat Erdogan, the country's longest-serving leader, whose campaigning charisma has helped deliver more than a dozen election victories. The opposition has stressed that Erdogan's drive to slash interest rates set off the inflationary crisis that devastated household budgets. HEALING OLD WOUNDSBefore entering politics, Kilicdaroglu worked in the finance ministry and then chaired Turkey's Social Insurance Institution for most of the 1990s. "I have been boycotting the elections since 2018 but I will vote for Kemal Kilicdaroglu this time.

☆ Turkey's Baykar plans production of new air combat drone next year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ISTANBUL, April 29 (Reuters) - Turkish defence firm Baykar aims to begin production of its new unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) next year which is already attracting international interest, its chairman Selcuk Bayraktar said. Named Kizilelma, the drone expands the company's product range from slow, ground attack drones to fast and agile autonomous ones that work alongside fighter jets. "It is designed to be a highly autonomous, under human purview of course, air-to-air combat vehicle" said Bayraktar, who led the design of the 15-meter-long jet-powered UCAV. Baykar plans to begin production in small quantities next year. Kizilelma made its first flight in December and began formation flight tests with Baykar's other drones this month.

Fear that another tragedy could strike forced her to leave Istanbul because she couldn't afford a new apartment there, she said. However, seismologists said the February disaster has not changed the likelihood of an Istanbul quake, with the two areas on different faultlines. Any disaster in Istanbul would stagger Turkey's economy given the broader Marmara region accounts for some 41% of national GDP. Some 1.5 million homes are considered at risk in the city, Urban Planning Minister Murat Kurum said this week. According to official data, an average of more than three people live in each household, meaning up to 5 million live in these properties.

"It is not clear whether some citizens are alive or dead in the earthquake zone. Erdogan's AK Party has said it is committed to a free and fair election that respects the will of the people. BALLOT BOX SECURITYOpposition parties and non-governmental organisations say the exodus of more than 3 million people from the disaster zone poses extra concerns. While some 300,000 to 500,000 of them were thought to have changed addresses, many of those who had left the disaster zone had not, added Tiryaki. For Yigit, the earthquake and what he sees as the government's slow response to the disaster weighs on him as he decides how to vote.

☆ Killer drones and multi-billion dollar deals: Turkey's rapidly-growing defense industry is boosting its global clout
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Drones aren't the only thing elevating Turkey's status as a growing player in the global defense industry. Turnover for the country's defense industry as a whole last year was $10 billion, according to Turkey's Presidency of Defense Industries. And the investment shows in the numbers: research and development in Turkey's defense sector "recently increased by 30 percent," the Atlantic Council's report wrote. Turkish defense manufacturers say they are booked for the next several years with orders to help replenish NATO stockpiles. Those firms also have high demand from Turkey's military alone — it is, after all, the second-largest military in NATO after the United States.

ISTANBUL, March 24 (Reuters) - Scores of foreign investors are returning to Istanbul and Ankara after years in the cold for a flurry of meetings to understand whether Turkish elections could bring a tidal change for its economy and financial markets. President Tayyip Erdogan's unorthodox policy approach, including aggressive rate cuts in the face of soaring inflation, left the economy and markets heavily state-managed and spurred an exodus of foreign investors over the last five years. Investors seek to understand "who will win, who will hold key positions and what the programme will be." Wall Street bank Citi said it held two days of meetings in Istanbul earlier this month for its bond and equity investors. "It may be a good opportunity to rethink Turkey's currently significant 'underweight' positioning among peer markets," the investor said.

Separately, in a televised interview on Wednesday, Erdogan downplayed the significance of the meeting with Simsek, saying such meetings were ordinary. A senior government official told Reuters the AKP was somewhat divided with some members opposed to Simsek's return, and described the outcome of the Erdogan meeting as "undesirable". The party may now need to revise its economic platform ahead of the election campaign, he added. The AKP declined to comment on whether it was revising its economic strategy ahead of the vote. Two recent polls by MAK and Turkiye Raporu show the opposition presidential challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu between 4 and 9 percentage points ahead of Erdogan.

☆ In vote setback for Erdogan, Turkey's HDP will not field candidate
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ANKARA, March 22 (Reuters) - Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and its allies will not field a presidential candidate in May, its co-leader said on Wednesday, raising the prospect of the opposition uniting against President Tayyip Erdogan's re-election bid. Speaking at a news conference, Pervin Buldan did not openly say whether her alliance would support opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, after they had met on Monday. "For these reasons, we are sharing with the public that we will not field a candidate in presidential elections." Erdogan is facing the biggest challenge to his rule in his more than two decades of leading Turkey. Recent polls show him trailing Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the opposition alliance of six parties.

☆ EU's EIB to break 4-year Turkey lending ban with earthquake aid
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 20 (Reuters) - The European Union's lending arm, the European Investment Bank, is to provide 500 million euros ($540 mln) for Turkey's post-earthquake rebuilding efforts, suspending an almost-total ban on financing for Turkey. The EIB stopped virtually all lending in Turkey after a row over oil and gas drilling off Cyprus nearly four years ago. But the severity of last month's quake, which killed nearly 56,000 people in Turkey and neighbouring Syria, has prompted it to make an exception. Turkey is set to hold pivotal presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 and EU members are wary of a resumption of EIB lending being seen as an indirect backing of incumbent president Tayyip Erdogan's re-election campaign. The EIB lent around 2 billion euros a year in Turkey between 2009 and 2016 before the concerns about Ankara's domestic crackdown first saw the bank scale back its lending in the country.

☆ US urges Turkey to quickly ratify Sweden's NATO bid
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The United States welcomed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's announcement on Friday that the country's parliament will begin ratifying Finland's NATO bid, and encouraged Turkey to quickly ratify Sweden's accession into the military alliance as well. "Sweden and Finland are both strong, capable partners that share NATO’s values and will strengthen the Alliance and contribute to European security. The United States believes that both countries should become members of NATO as soon as possible," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. Reporting by Costas Pitas and Rami Ayyub; editing by Paul GrantOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Erdogan's party pivots back to orthodox economic policies in draft manifesto -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Orhan Coskun | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

ANKARA, March 16 (Reuters) - The draft election manifesto of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party marks a return to more orthodox, free market economic policies, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. According to the sources familiar with the draft, the AK's manifesto for the upcoming election will make no reference to Ankara's more recent economic policies but instead to return to his party's prior, more orthodox approach. "The approach to the economy is very similar to that of the 2002 AK Party election manifesto. He said Erdogan's final approval of the manifesto would be required and so far he had not conveyed any dissenting opinion. If he takes office, a radical change is inevitable in economic policies, the bureaucracy and cabinet members to work in harmony with him," the AKP official said.

☆ Erdogan's AKP party signals return to more orthodox economic policies in draft election manifesto -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Orhan Coskun | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

☆ Sweden, Finland and Turkey hold NATO talks, agree to more meetings
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

STOCKHOLM/ISTANBUL, March 9 (Reuters) - Turkey has acknowledged that Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps to meet Ankara's concerns over their bids to join NATO and the three will hold further meetings, Sweden's chief negotiator in the accession process said on Thursday. Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey which says the two countries harbour members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies. "We see that Turkey recognized that both Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps in this agreement, which is a good sign," chief negotiator Oscar Stenstrom told a news conference at NATO headquarters after trilateral talks resumed. President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said steps taken by Sweden and Finland to address Ankara's security concerns were positive, but not enough for Turkey's ratification of their NATO bid. In January, Turkey suspended talks set up as part of a trilateral deal agreed in Madrid last year aimed at smoothing Finland and Sweden's accession process.

[1/2] Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accompanied by IYI Party leader Meral Aksener and Felicity Party leader Temel Karamollaoglu, talks to media following a meeting of the opposition alliance in Ankara, Turkey March 6, 2023. A cost-of-living crisis amid rampant inflation and years of economic turmoil have eroded Erdogan's support, giving Kilicdaroglu another advantage. Recent polling showed Erdogan's support had edged up since last summer thanks to measures including a raise in the minimum wage. The following year, he was elected unopposed as CHP leader after his predecessor's resignation in the wake of scandal. His election fuelled party hopes of a new start, but support for CHP has since failed to surpass about 25%.

FOREIGN POLICYThe opposition bloc will adopt the slogan of "Peace at Home, Peace in the World" as the cornerstone of Turkey's foreign policy. While promising to "work to complete the accession process" for the full membership in the European Union, the alliance has vowed to review Turkey's refugee deal of 2016 with the EU. They have also promised to establish relations with the United States with an understanding of mutual trust, and to return Turkey to the F-35 fighter jet programme. They say Turkey would maintain relations with Russia "with an understanding that both parties are equal and strengthened by balanced and constructive dialogue." They will also reform the structure and elections processes for higher courts, such as the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation and Council of State.

[1/4] Ibrahim Kurt helps salvage belongings from a collapsed home in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Nurdagi, Turkey, March 5, 2023. This 20-year-long rapid construction came crashing down in just two minutes," said Hasan Bal, 52, a retired teacher who lost 10 immediate relatives in the magnitude 7.8 quake. The initial quake on Feb. 6 tremor sliced directly through Nurdagi, leaving it among the worst hit communities in Turkey's deadliest modern disaster. Residents say cheap credit had helped the town expand, reflecting a nationwide building boom that has defined Erdogan's two decades in power. Aslan said her family is thankful for a furnished container home where they live for now on the outskirts of town.

☆ Turkey's quakes revive concern for northwestern industrial hub
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Birsen Altayli | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] The full moon, also known as the Supermoon or Flower Moon, rises above the Camlica Mosque during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Istanbul, Turkey, May 7, 2020. Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city with a population of 16 million and the country's commercial engine, lies near fault lines that criss-cross the country. The southeast region has a sizeable manufacturing sector, albeit smaller than Turkey's northwest. "This is (Turkey's) industrial centre. The Marmara region is home to 25 million people and accounts for just over 40 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) as of 2021, according to figures from Turkey's Statistics Institute.

☆ Erdogan leaning towards holding Turkish elections in June -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Orhan Coskun | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Days after the quake struck on Feb. 6, killing more than 42,000 people in Turkey, an official said it posed "serious difficulties" for holding elections on time. Now those close to the president say the government has turned against the idea of a postponement. Before the disaster, Erdogan's popularity had been eroded by the soaring cost of living and a slump in the lira. A senior AKP official also said the view had gained weight that elections should be held on June 18. Another senior Turkish official also said the idea of postponing the elections had been shelved.

Days after Turkey's worst earthquake in modern history, Erdogan vowed to rebuild the southern disaster zone within a year, an undertaking conservative estimates put at $25 billion and others expect to be far higher. Authorities say more than 380,000 units in 105,794 buildings are in urgent need of demolition or have collapsed, out of 2.5 million structures across the region. "We will rebuild these buildings within one year and hand them back to citizens," he said. They devastated southern Turkey in the dead of winter, with overnight temperatures near freezing, leaving many emergency tents inadequate for the homeless. "FRIENDLY COMPANIES"The bill to rebuild houses, transmission lines and infrastructure is around $25 billion, or 2.5% of GDP, U.S. bank JPMorgan said in a report.

☆ Turkey rages at shoddy construction after 'earthquake-proof' homes topple
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Ali Kucukgocmen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/5] A cat stands on a destroyed street, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake, in Antakya, Turkey February 17, 2023. It was said to be earthquake safe, but you can see the result," said 47-year-old jeweller Hamza Alpaslan. Turkey's Urbanisation Ministry estimates 84,700 buildings have collapsed or are severely damaged. The Urbanisation Ministry said documents would be moved to the ministry archive in the city and were stored digitally. BUILDING AMNESTYSector officials have said some 50% of the total 20 million buildings in Turkey contravene building codes.

☆ Turkey earthquake could result in loss of up to 1% of country's GDP in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Jorgelina Do Rosario | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The potential economic effects of the earthquake in Turkey could result in a loss of up to 1% of the country's gross domestic product this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a report published on Thursday. "The earthquake affected to a large extent agricultural areas and areas where there is light manufacturing, so spillovers to other sectors are limited," EBRD chief economist Beata Javorcik told Reuters. Growth for Turkey, the single biggest recipient of EBRD funds, has been revised down to 3% from 3.5% in 2023, without considering the impact of the earthquake in the estimates. The bank added that growing external financing requirements and political uncertainty associated with elections in 2023 create significant economic vulnerabilities. Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario in London Editing by Karin Strohecker and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

ANKARA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Turkish police said they have arrested 78 people accused of creating fear and panic by "sharing provocative posts" about last week's earthquake on social media, adding 20 of them were being held in pre-trial detention. Turkey's General Directorate of Security said it had identified 613 people accused of making provocative posts, and legal proceedings had been initiated against 293. President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party had said a law was needed to tackle false accusations on social media, and it would not silence opposition. The government has also blocked social media in the past. Within a week of the earthquake, some 6,200 items of false information and news were reported to the government, Altun added.

[1/2] Rescuers work at the site of a collapsed building, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey February 14, 2023. "I don't think it's time to talk about elections," an AKP official told Reuters, citing the state of emergency. He said the priority was to set an election date and get the High Election Board to start preparations. The AKP official expected the disaster to erode votes for the ruling alliance given the suffering, and the loss of life and property. The constitution sets a two-term limit for presidents, but they can seek another term if parliament calls an early election before the second term expires.

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