Bank Asya shares surge after Turkish election results
Bank Asya
Date posted: June 10, 2015
The AK Party’s failure to secure enough votes to form the government reflects on the stock market, with the politically-seized Bank Asya’s shares observing a 10.75 percent increase at opening on Monday amidst an overall drop in Borsa Istanbul.
Bank Asya had long been subject to political attacks and repeated demands by President Erdoğan to be taken over despite the fact that the publicly traded Islamic lender had one of the best capital adequacy ratios of the sector. Defamatory rumors published by pro-government press have been challenged, but unpunished.
As a result, in late May Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) seized the publicly-traded Islamic bank, placing it under the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), causing mass outrage by financial markets and banking experts.
The controversial move came months after the BDDK took control over its management after a long government-orchestrated campaign against it.
Bank Asya’s shareholders’ lawyers have voiced a strong demand for the return of the management to its rightful owners, and have applied to the courts to take action.
Gülen, a man of peace, not behind attempted coup in Turkey
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AFSV Denounces President Erdogan’s Seizure of Leading Newspaper Zaman
The Turkish government’s seizure of Zaman, the largest-selling newspaper in Turkey, is an attack on the country’s human rights, civil society and freedom of expression and the media. In his effort to consolidate power and silence all dissent, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s actions only serve to highlight his growing authoritarian tendencies.
Diplomatic Row over Gulen Influence in Africa
Turkey’s relations with African countries have been strained following demands by the Turkish government to close Gulenist schools in Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia. After the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, which the Turkish government has accused Gulen of masterminding, Turkey’s ambassador to Nigeria called for 17 Gulenist schools in the country to be closed.
Turkey’s New Maps Are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire
Erdogan, by contrast, has given voice to an alternative narrative in which Ataturk’s willingness in the Treaty of Lausanne to abandon territories such as Mosul and the now-Greek islands in the Aegean was not an act of eminent pragmatism but rather a betrayal. The suggestion, against all evidence, is that better statesmen, or perhaps a more patriotic one, could have gotten more.
US Unlikely to ‘Speed Up’ Gulen’s Extradition to Turkey
Turkey has formally requested that the U.S. government extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen from the state of Pennsylvania where he has lived in self-imposed exile for 17 years. Turkey is pushing for quick extradition, suggesting that U.S.-Turkish relations are at stake. But the burden of proof rests squarely on Ankara, and if it cannot sufficiently prove its accusations against Gulen, the extradition request will be refused.
PM Erdoğan also slammed me for my questions on Uludere, says journalist
Ahmet Dönmez, a leading correspondent based in Ankara with the Zaman daily who was sharply rebuked by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after asking him a question about recent allegations of corruption during a press conference on Feb. 12 and who was proclaimed both a national hero and a traitor on social media outlets shortly thereafter, says that he was also reproached by Erdoğan once before and that this is indicative of the state of journalism in Turkey.
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