Pro-gov't papers congratulate Turkey for being "the world’s most conscientious country"

Pro-gov't papers congratulate Turkey for being "the world’s most conscientious country"

Turkey’s sizable pro-government press pool was relatively restrained on Monday, apparently relaxing for the Islamic festival of sacrifice, which was celebrated this week.

It was a fitting occasion for Sabah newspaper to congratulate Turkey on being “the world’s most conscientious country,” and “providing relief for people in need around the world, regardless of race, language, religion or gender.”

The front page refers to a study by the independent international development organisation Development Initiatives, which found that Turkey’s government spent over $8 billion on humanitarian assistance in 2017, more than any other country.

While the report notes that the majority of this relief was spent on the millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, and thus is “not strictly comparable with the humanitarian assistance from other donors,” the figure still comes far ahead of the $6.68 billion spent by the next largest donor, the United States.

Leftist-nationalist newspaper Aydınlık’s Monday headline revealed a depressing fact for Turkey’s already beleaguered independent media. The newspaper announced that, due to inflated paper prices thanks to the weakening lira, there would be a three-day break in publication of the newspaper.

While the anti-imperialist newspaper presented this as a result of the “dollar siege,” referring to the U.S. sanctions and tariff hikes that triggered a sharp fall in the lira this month, the rise in paper prices are just one facet of the country’s reliance on imports and the pressure this puts on local companies.

Aydınlık and two other independent independent newspapers, Cumhuriyet and Sözcü, have been forced to raise prices as a result, though major pro-government outlets have so far kept prices stable.

The pro-government daily Akşam on Tuesday reported on the drive-by shooting at the U.S. embassy in Ankara the previous day, which it called a “6-bullet provocation.”

In fact, the shooting was the work of two petty criminals who were caught later that day and confessed that they had shot at the embassy early on Monday morning out of frustration at the rise of the dollar and statements by the U.S. president.

Observers of Turkey may draw links between the incident and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s recent anti-U.S. rhetoric, which has reached a peak this month as the diplomatic crisis over Turkey’s detainment of U.S. citizens and employees progressed.

U.S. President Donald Trump hit two Turkish ministers with sanctions and doubled tariffs on metal as Turkey stubbornly refused to release the prisoners, including Andrew Brunson, the American pastor held on terror and espionage charges since Oct. 2016 who has become the face of the crisis.

Erdoğan has called the sanctions and accompanying lira nosedive an “economic war” on Turkey, and said in a speech on Monday that it was no different to an attack on Turkey’s religious customs or flag, as the pro-government newspaper Star reported on its front page.

Türkiye, another newspaper closely associated with the government, kept up the anti-U.S. barrage on Wednesday with a headline proclaiming a “missile message to Trump” – the “bad news for the United States” that Moscow had accelerated delivery of its S-400 missile defence systems to Turkey, which will now receive them a year early in 2019.

The S-400 has been the cause of another significant rift with the United States, which like other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has called on Turkey to back out of the deal.

The Russian systems will not be interoperable with the existing integrated NATO defence systems, and fears have arisen that Moscow will gain access to classified military data if Turkey uses the S-400s.

Secularist broadsheet Cumhuriyet’s front page reported on another apparent miscarriage of justice in Turkey, the ongoing imprisonment of three citizens who allegedly threatened officials at a stand set up by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

After 73 days in prison pending trial, a court this week rejected a request for the release of the suspects, despite admitting that the charge sheet against them contained insufficient evidence.

A defence lawyer accused the court of conspiring to press further charges of membership of an illegal organisation on the suspects.

On Thursday a large contingent of Turkey’s press was up in arms over, as Akşam newspaper put it, the country’s “treacherous neighbours” in Greece.

The uproar was over a Greek court’s decision to grant asylum to Greek servicemen who had fled Turkey in the aftermath of the Jul. 2016 coup attempt.

This decision was proof the Greek judiciary was under the control of the Gülen religious movement, Star newspaper said, referring to the group blamed by the AKP for plotting the coup attempt.

On Friday, it was Cumhuriyet’s turn to take a pot shot at Trump during a bad week for the U.S. president, in which two close associates were found or pled guilty, and close associates have shown signs they may turn against him to give evidence in the Special Counsel probe into his election campaign.

Trump’s response under pressure was to warn that stock markets would crash and “everyone would be very poor” if he were impeached, the kind of threat typical of autocrats, Cumhuriyet said in its headline.

Islamist pro-Erdoğan newspaper Yeni Şafak’s front page led with the same story, adding a startling claim that “Trump’s next move will be to seize $4 trillion of Arab countries’ wealth held in U.S. and British banks.”

The newspaper’s claim appears to have been based on the opinions of Cemalettin Kerim, the head of the Turkish-Arab Businessperson’s Association, and Kadir Tuna, an academic, who warned of the “very high chance” that the United States will seize the funds.