The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would seek to make changes to the constitution with consensus even if they had the power to alter the document on their own, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) comfortably won a parliamentary vote of confidence on Nov. 30, a month after its landslide victory in the Nov. 1 snap elections.
509 deputies cast votes on Nov. 30, and the AKP received 315 votes of confidence while 194 deputies cast votes of no confidence.
Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar and the daily’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gül, were arrested due to stories published about Turkish intelligence trucks bound for Syria in early 2014, on Nov. 26 in Istanbul.
“We are accused of ‘spying.’ The president said [our action is] ‘treason.’ We are not traitors, spy, or heroes; we are journalists. What we have done here was an act of journalism,” Dündar said before testifying to prosecutors on Nov. 26, in a case that has been denounced by many as an attack against free press.
Persons imprisoned over deliberate criminal activity will now be able to be candidates in elections, according to the latest ruling of Turkey’s Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court annulled several items of Article 53 of the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) that deprived prisoners of the right to candidacy, vote and other political activities, stating in its ruling that the items in question violate the constitution, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey’s new government under Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has set the adoption of the presidential system in line with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s desires as one its top priorities, together with the approval of a new constitution and improvements on democratization.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has approved a cabinet list drafted by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, one week after commissioning the premier to form a new cabinet in the wake of the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) victory in the Nov. 1 elections.
Erdoğan asked Davutoğlu, who is also the head of the AKP, to form a new government on Nov. 17.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announced Turkey's new cabinet on Nov. 24 after the list was approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Former Finance Minister Mehmet Şişmek has become the deputy prime minister in charge of economy, while Ali Babacan was not included in the cabinet.
Berat Albayrak, President Erdoğan’s son-in-law became the country's new energy minister.
Turkey’s next government is due to be announced this week, three-weeks after the Nov 1 election in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) secured a comfortable majority at parliament.
Although it is not yet certain when the government will be submitted to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for approval, it is expected to be finalized this week.
ISTANBUL: The charismatic co-chairman of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party has escaped an assassination attempt, the party said on Monday (Nov 23), but the authorities denied any such armed attack had taken place.
Selahattin Demirtas of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was in his armoured vehicle in the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir late on Sunday when it was hit by a single bullet at head height, the party said in a statement.
Turkish police said on Nov. 23 that damage to the car of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was not caused by gunfire, after a party spokesman said it had been hit by a bullet in an apparent assassination attempt.
A spokesperson for the HDP had said the car’s rear window was hit on Nov. 22 as he drove in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.
But the city’s police said analysis of damage to a rear window in the car showed no evidence of gunfire.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has announced that it will hold its annual congress to elect a new leader for the party on Jan. 15-16, after having failed to capitalize on a snap election on Nov. 1 which allowed the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to regain power.
İsmail Kahraman, the Istanbul deputy from the ranks of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been elected as the new parliament speaker in the third round of the voting on Nov 22.
A veteran conservative politician, Kahraman served as minister of culture in the mid-1990s under Necmettin Erbakan’s governments, which were later shut down by the Constitutional Court. Kahraman is known as one of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s closest associates. After a break of 12 years, he returned to the active politics through the Nov. 1 elections.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) has nominated Istanbul deputy Ismail Kahraman as a candidate for the post of parliament speaker, Turkey’s second most senior position in state protocol.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on the country’s main opposition party to lend support to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in its renewed efforts to enact a new constitution, suggesting such cooperation would eliminate the need to take a fresh charter to a referendum.
Turkey’s top election body has swiftly dismissed an appeal by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to cancel the Nov. 1 snap election.
The HDP appealed to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on Nov. 15, arguing that the campaign did not take place in line with the principle of “free and equal voting” and that the interim Justice and Development Party (AKP) government led by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had operated at an unfair advantage.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) appealed to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on Monday to ask for the cancelation of the results of the Nov. 1 general election.
The HDP received fewer votes in the Nov. 1 snap election than in the previous general election held on June 7. Although the party obtained 13 percent of the vote on June 7, its support dropped to 10 percent on Nov. 1, following the renewed conflict between Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is assessing what led to its crushing defeat at the hands of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Nov. 1 election, MHP head Devlet Bahçeli has said, in his first parliamentary group meeting since the poll.
Admitting that the MHP fell short of expectations in the election, Bahçeli also claimed that the results did not mark a “defeat” for the party. The MHP lost almost two million votes in five months, while the AKP increased its votes by nearly four million.
The national assembly of Turkey, most members of which were reelected in Nov. 1 snap elections following the June 7 elections, gathers on Nov. 17 for an oath taking ceremony, the kick off procedure for the forming of a new government.
Deniz Baykal, the former leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), will hold the post of temporary parliament speaker until the parliament elects its speaker.
The state-owned Turkish Satellite Communications Company (Türksat) dropped a total of 13 TV and radio channels including Samanyolu TV, Mehtap TV, S Haber and Radio Cihan that are critical of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as of Saturday 12 a.m., in a severe blow to already deteriorating press freedoms in Turkey.
