Politics
Türkiye pledges bold stance for justice in shifting world order
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Türkiye will continue to speak out for justice and defend what is right wherever needed, stressing that the nation’s strength is rooted in its history, conscience and the legacy of past struggles.
Speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said Türkiye’s firm, sincere and principled stance in the face of global challenges is being recognized across the international community. At a time when the world is undergoing sharp geopolitical fractures, he noted, Türkiye aims to expand friendships rather than create new hostilities.
The president emphasized that Ankara is not interested in escalating disagreements or deepening disputes, but instead seeks constructive dialogue and new partnerships. He underlined that while Türkiye respects the sovereign rights of all nations, it also expects the same respect for its own rights and legal interests.
Blending diplomacy, humanitarian action and culture, Türkiye is positioning itself as a key global actor amid rising conflicts and uncertainty. Over the past decades, Türkiye has expanded its public diplomacy efforts beyond traditional communication, positioning a wide range of institutions and nonstate actors as key tools in shaping its international image. Türkiye has intensified its use of humanitarian diplomacy to position itself as a global peace broker, delivering not only humanitarian and development assistance but also acting on moral and ethical principles across the world during crises.
The president also stressed that Türkiye, together with relatives of the fallen soldiers, strongly supports the ongoing effort to permanently end PKK terrorism as part of the “terror-free Türkiye” initiative. Despite those who seek to exploit terrorism for political gain, Erdoğan said the process is moving forward steadily toward its goal. He added that the government is committed to staying within legal boundaries and respecting public sensitivities as it works to bring the process to a successful conclusion.
In its 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the U.S., and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, infants and the elderly.
Türkiye has made progress in the disarmament of the terrorist group PKK after a parliamentary committee agreed upon the guidelines for Parliament in the terror-free Türkiye initiative earlier this week. Government officials say the initiative builds on years of counterterrorism operations that significantly weakened the PKK’s operational capacity inside Türkiye and across its borders.
New Welfare Party (YRP) Deputy Chair Doğan Bekin resigned from his post on Wednesday, at a news conference where he revealed a row with Suat Kılıç, another deputy chair of the opposition party.
Rumors were circulating about the possible resignation of Bekin and a switch to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for a while, but the politician revealed at the news conference in Ankara that he would remain in the party. Media outlets had earlier revealed that Bekin was not on good terms with Kılıç, a former minister who joined the YRP from the AK Party, for a while, and their differences of opinion further worsened in recent days. Bekin was quoted as saying that Kılıç opposed the terror-free Türkiye initiative and urged him to vote against a bill to facilitate the process involving the disarmament of the terrorist group PKK.
The YRP supported the AK Party in the 2023 presidential elections and is chaired by Fatih Erbakan, son of the late prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, political mentor of the AK Party Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Bekin said Erbakan asked him to leave the post of deputy chair and member of the Central Executive Committee of the party. He said he spent his early years within the National View (the political movement led by Necmettin Erbakan) and had major disagreements with Suat Kılıç over the latter’s books where he does not have “good things to say about Necmettin Erbakan.” He said he asked Kılıç to apologize for what he wrote about Erbakan, but he refused.
When asked whether he would resign from the party, Bekin replied: “I will not act on my own regarding resignation. There are 117,500 voters who cast their ballots for me. There is a moral responsibility toward them. There are responsibilities placed on me by the local party organizations. We have colleagues, we have friends. I will under no circumstances take action without first consulting these brothers and sisters of ours who voted for us, worked for us, poured their hearts out day and night, and came to work in the campaign squares day and night doing local door-to-door outreach even while unable to take a bite of bread home. I will follow the process and act accordingly.”
Yakup Öner, an engineer who used to work at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), exposed, as part of the widespread corruption case, how the municipal officials rigged tenders involving Istanbul’s former mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, an opposition favorite.
Öner, who was released earlier after he agreed to collaborate with authorities, testified on Wednesday at the hearing on what prosecutors call the “Imamoğlu criminal organization” at a courthouse in Istanbul.
He told the court that during his tenure at the municipality, he found out that municipal officials were in talks with certain companies before tender processes and sought payment of “7% to 10% of the tender price” to award tenders.
“I found out that cash or similar payments had been requested from some companies doing business with the municipality during the election period,” he said. Some witnesses and defendants in the case have claimed that Imamoğlu and his associates collected cash through bribes to fund Imamoğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) and his future campaign in presidential elections.
At the hearing, defendant Öner also described an annual salary of $100,000 (TL 4.9 million) that Ekrem Imamoğlu allegedly gave him unofficially in a bag, apparently as hush money.
The indictment stated that Öner had been part of the criminal organization led by Imamoğlu from its establishment. It alleged that Öner conveyed to Imamoğlu the details of his meetings with prominent businesspeople concerning structures located within the Bosporus scenic zone where new construction is either strictly regulated or prohibited based on zoning plans. The indictment also stated that, in line with Imamoğlu’s instructions, municipal officials requested “charitable donations, construction of nurseries, schools and libraries” as bribes in exchange for issuing otherwise unattainable permits.
Öner said Imamoğlu had requested the construction of a nursery worth $700,000 in exchange for a strengthening permit for a villa and had also asked a company to waive a TL 10 million receivable from the municipality in exchange for a strengthening permit.
Regarding the allegation that a $10 million bribe was demanded to refrain from taking action over zoning violations involving a building owned by a prominent company, Öner said, “The structure related to (the nightclub) Reina dates back to before 1950 and is therefore legally considered to have an occupancy permit. Accordingly, under the regulations, it is possible to issue a strengthening permit for structures with occupancy permits. The relevant company’s request was for this purpose. Ekrem Imamoğlu conveyed this matter to me. He told me about the company’s requests and said, ‘Let’s ask them to waive $10 million of the total amount they are owed by the rail systems,” he said,” referring to the municipality’s debt to the said company, which also undertook a rail project for the municipality.
In another instance, Öner said Imamoğlu told him to ask a construction company to build a dormitory and hand it to the municipality in exchange for a building permit.
Asked about the annual $100,000 salary that Imamoğlu allegedly gave him unofficially, Öner said: “I was an employee working outside the institution when I had my own company. Naturally, you establish a certain standard of living for yourself. When you are told to maintain that standard while working at the institution, you cannot change it. Therefore, I made such a request. He was kind enough not to turn me down, but this was an annual $100,000 regardless of the nature or quality of the work I was doing.”
When the prosecutor asked whether the money came from municipal funds or was paid by Imamoğlu himself, the defendant replied, “I received it from him.”
When asked whether the money was handed over in cash, the defendant said, “Yes, I received it in cash. I would receive it from him in the environment where he was.”
The prosecutor then asked, “Did Mr. Ekrem carry the money around by taking it out of his pocket?”
The defendant replied, “No, not in his pocket. I received it in a bag.”
“None of the businesspeople willingly or gladly accepted the high amounts of payments during any of the meetings. They somehow made it clear that they were not making the payments willingly. They felt that their future relationships and business dealings depended on these payments. Therefore, they felt they had to make them,” he said.
The number of mayors elected under the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) banner who have since joined Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has risen to 44.
The latest switches include the mayors of Çerkezköy, Çiğli, Elmalı, Şenkaya and Marmara, continuing a series of defections from the CHP since the 2024 local elections.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented party badges to the nine mayors during the party’s Expanded Provincial Chairs Meeting in Ankara on Tuesday and wished them success in their work.
The CHP won 420 municipalities across Türkiye in the 2024 elections. With 44 mayors having since resigned from the party and joined the AK Party, the figure represents roughly one in every 10 mayors elected on the CHP ticket, according to the figures.
The defections have fueled further debate within the opposition over the CHP’s candidate selection process and its handling of local administrations under Chair Özgür Özel.
CHP spokesperson Müslim Sarı criticized the party leadership over the latest developments, questioning how the mayors who later left the party had initially been selected as candidates.
“We asked the officials of the period before, and today we are asking again: Who nominated these people? Who recommended them? On the basis of what assessments did they become the CHP’s mayoral candidates? Aren’t you considering engaging in self-criticism?” Sarı said.
Several prominent municipal officials have been among those who switched to the AK Party over the past 2.5 years, including Aydın Metropolitan Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu, Afyonkarahisar Mayor Burcu Köksal, Keçiören Mayor Mesut Özarslan, Beykoz Deputy Mayor Özlem Vural Gürzel and Tuzla Mayor Eren Ali Bingöl.
Çerçioğlu, mayor of Aydın province in western Türkiye, was the most high-profile name from the CHP to join the AK Party in recent years.
Çerçioğlu said she took the matter to CHP Chair Özgür Özel, and he listened to her concerns but did not respond. She claimed that she faced a barrage of insults on social media after speaking to Özel, and for months CHP headquarters did not respond to her.
She further said Özel himself openly defamed her, claiming she took bribes from a businessperson, noting that both the prosecutor’s office in Aydın and the Court of Accounts, which was inspecting municipalities, ruled for non-prosecution for her in that case.
The mayors who left the CHP cited a range of reasons for their decisions, including dissatisfaction with the party leadership, alleged pressure, a lack of attention to the demands of local administrations and concerns over the party’s institutional functioning.
Moreover, six municipal council members also from the CHP in Istanbul’s Ataşehir district joined the AK Party on Wednesday, a day after nine district mayors switched to the party.
Oğuz Sarul, Sinan Emrah Yıldırım, Fatih Evliyaoğlu, Abdullah Aslan, Cengiz Kayayurt and Mehmet Alver joined the AK Party during a local party meeting in Ataşehir, according to a statement from the AK Party’s Istanbul branch.
Sarul also serves as a member of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) Council.
The switches changed the balance in the Ataşehir Municipal Council to 19 members for the CHP, 16 for the AK Party and two for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
AK Party Istanbul Chair Abdullah Özdemir welcomed the six members, saying the party was open to people from different political backgrounds who wanted to contribute to local government.
Özdemir said the new members would contribute to a service-oriented period in local politics and that the party would continue working to address problems facing Istanbul residents.
Most recently, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş resigned from the CHP in an announcement last week, saying, “I am resigning my membership in the Republican People’s Party and will continue my political path as an independent.”
In a statement on social media, Yavaş said his decision to leave the CHP was not made out of anger or resentment but after careful consideration.
He noted that political and legal disputes that began on March 19 and later included debate over the possible annulment of CHP party congresses had brought Turkish politics to a difficult point.
Amid a war of words with Türkiye over the Aegean Sea, Greece conducted a military exercise that may further fuel tensions. The “Alexandros” exercise included scenarios such as landing troops on small islets, seizing uninhabited rocky outcrops and conducting nighttime operations.
Türkiye and Greece have occasionally taken steps that could translate into a greater conflict in the future, but they have generally favored maintaining good relations, especially amid a climate of rapprochement under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Mitsotakis, however, appears to be reversing his earlier, warmer rhetoric. He asserted Greece’s “inalienable right” to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean earlier this month, days after his country signed a historic defense deal with Türkiye’s longtime adversary, Israel. Experts say this newfound confidence could upset the relative calm.
The Alexandros exercise came against this backdrop. At least 70 fighter jets were mobilized, while special forces and ground units in different parts of Greece were also placed on alert as part of the scenario.
According to Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper, the “Alexandros” exercise tested the response speed, coordination and readiness levels of the Greek Armed Forces’ air, land and naval units. The exercise scenarios envisaged units being ready for deployment within just five minutes. The Greek Armed Forces also carried out nighttime operations to seize small islets during the exercise. Ground units in the Evros region near the Turkish border and on the islands were also placed on full alert. The aerial display during the Greek military exercise also drew attention. The stated aim of the exercise was to test the Greek Armed Forces’ ability to respond rapidly in the event of a sudden and coordinated crisis.
The exercise’s focus on small islets and rocky outcrops brought the long-running Aegean disputes between Ankara and Athens back into the spotlight.
Türkiye argues that the demilitarized status of some islands in the Eastern Aegean, as established by international treaties, is being violated. Greece rejects Türkiye’s assessment on the issue.
About two weeks before Greece’s latest exercise, a military deployment by Türkiye had also received extensive coverage in the Greek media. Türkiye had moved units belonging to the 51st Commando Brigade to the Söke district of Aydın province as part of the regular course of a planned deployment. The deployment was closely followed in Greece because Söke is located opposite the island of Samos. Greek media outlets claimed that the units constituted a commando force of around 2,000 personnel, while some reports described the development as a “Turkish wall in the Aegean.” However, Türkiye’s Defense Ministry said the transfer of the units to Söke was part of a deployment change that had been planned and approved in June.
In a related development, Angelos Syrigos, a lawmaker from Greece’s ruling New Democracy party, acknowledged that Greece had twice backed down in 2024 from seabed surveys related to a Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection project near Crete after Turkish warships arrived in the area, despite Greece not having sought permission from Türkiye. Syrigos discussed the incidents that took place in July and November 2024 during an appearance on ERT News. Regarding Greece’s response after Türkiye sent five warships to the area in July 2024 and then sent warships again in November, albeit with lower intensity, Syrigos said, “We backed down on both occasions. We did not continue the seabed surveys.”
When the host asked, “Did we back down?” Syrigos replied, “Yes,” and claimed that Athens believed at the time that the issue could be resolved through dialogue and in accordance with international law provisions concerning the laying of undersea cables. Syrigos said cable-laying activities had previously been carried out in the same broad maritime area without serious problems, leading Greece to believe that the current project could proceed in a similar manner. However, he said, the same conditions did not materialize this time.
Syrigos claimed that Türkiye would not be asked for permission for the cable work, but that a French research vessel could notify the Turkish side this time. He argued that notifying Türkiye would not amount to seeking its permission.
Media outlets reported on Wednesday that Ruhtan Başkaya, a member of the municipal assembly in the southwestern Turkish town of Fethiye for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was expelled from his party after he was caught with a minor in his hotel room in China.
Reports emerged on Tuesday that the assembly member from the town in the southwestern province of Muğla had been detained in China for the past two months after visiting the country. The Fethiye branch of the party confirmed the reports, saying that Başkaya was in China for a training program paid for out of his own pocket, while media reports claimed that he was there with a delegation from the Fethiye Municipality between July 3 and July 16.
On Wednesday, the Yeni Asır newspaper reported that Başkaya met a girl at an entertainment venue in the country and took her to his hotel room. The girl, apparently a minor, alerted police over an unspecified complaint, and police raided the hotel room, taking Başkaya into custody. The CHP’s Muğla branch announced on Tuesday that the matter had been referred to the disciplinary board and that Başkaya had been expelled from the party with immediate effect.
The CHP is no stranger to sex scandals. Özkan Yalım, the party’s mayor in the western province of Uşak, who was arrested last March on corruption charges, was expelled from the party in May. Yalım was detained in a hotel room with his mistress in Ankara during the corruption raid.
A subsequent investigation also found that the disgraced mayor had hired his other girlfriends as “ghost employees” of the municipality. The party’s late chair, Deniz Baykal, stepped down in 2010 after a video of him having an extramarital affair with his former secretary emerged.
Türkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) referred five district mayors to its disciplinary board Wednesday and called for their expulsion, as the party moves against members accused of supporting rival political movements.
CHP spokesman Müslim Sarı announced the decision following a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK), chaired by party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The mayors facing disciplinary proceedings are Mesut Kösedağı of Istanbul’s Kadıköy district, Alper Yeğin of Sancaktepe, Mustafa Oktay Aksu of Sarıyer, Cem Kotan of Antalya’s Konyaaltı district and Osman Tarık Özçelik of Alanya.
Sarı said working for another political party while remaining a CHP member constituted a clear disciplinary offense.
“No one can remain within the Republican People’s Party while trying to provide logistical support to another party or contributing to it,” he said.
Sarı also criticized CHP mayors who have left the party to join the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), saying there could be “no explanation” for such moves.
The spokesperson said the party would continue monitoring its members, adding that the latest disciplinary referrals would not be the last.
Sarı also confirmed that Kılıçdaroğlu would attend events marking the opening of the new legislative year in Parliament, including the General Assembly session and evening reception.
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