REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan swore on Sunday he would survive a corruption crisis circling his cabinet. He said that those seeking his overthrow would fail just like mass anti-government protests last summer.
"They said 'Gezi' and smashed windows. Now they say 'corruption' and smash windows. These conspiracies will not succeed," he told a cheering crowd in western Manisa province. "Their concern is not corruption, law or justice. Their only concern is damaging this nation's power."
Erdogan accused his opponents of trying to sap the power of Turkey, which had seen rapid economic growth and assertive foreign policies under his 11-year leadership, in the service of an international plot cloaked as criminal proceedings. Yet striking a somewhat milder tone, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appeared to seek common ground with a US-based Turkish cleric whose rivalry with Erdogan is widely seen as having stoked the controversy.
On Friday, thousands of Turks demanding Erdogan step down clashed with riot police in central Istanbul. The trouble recalled protests in mid-2013 which began over development plans for the city's Gezi park but broadened into complaints of authoritarianism under Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK party. Friday's unrest did not recur on Saturday or Sunday.
However, the current affair threatens to tarnish Erdogan's moral appeal and the crackdown on police has provoked a feud with the judiciary. Fretting investors have dumped Turkish stocks and pushed the lira currency to an all-time low against the dollar, a slide which a cabinet reshuffle failed to halt.
The case turned more personal last week when Turkish media published what appeared to be a preliminary summons for Bilal Erdogan, one of the premier's two sons, to testify. Erdogan, who denies any wrongdoing, said Bilal was named to hurt him.
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