Turkey PM threatens to expel some foreign ambassadors

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that he might expel some foreign ambassadors who are involved in “provocative actions” amid rising tension in the country over a graft probe.

Erdogan made the remarks on Saturday in a televised speech in the city of Samsun, only days after a graft scandal hit some governmental officials and prominent businessmen close to him.

“Some ambassadors are engaged in provocative actions…. Do your job. We don’t have to keep you in our country,” he said.

According to reports, Erdogan was referring to the US ambassador to Ankara, Francis Ricciardone, who had reportedly told some EU ambassadors that Washington “asked Halkbank to cut its links with Iran. They did not listen to us. You are watching the collapse of an empire.”

Ricciardone said in his Twitter account that the media reports were “baseless allegation.”

Suleyman Aslan, the chief executive of state-owned Halkbank, was among scores of people arrested in a bribery inquiry.

Early on Saturday, Aslan was charged with corruption, fraud, trafficking in gold and embezzlement, local media said.

In Istanbul, Baris Guler, son of Interior Minister Muammer Guler, and Kaan Caglayan, son of Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan, were also charged with acting as intermediaries to give and receive bribes.

Media reports said prosecutors had begun handing out corruption indictments to some of the 89 suspects arrested three days earlier, with the first eight formally arrested and placed in pre-trial detention on Friday. The arrested suspects may face possible bribery charges.

The son of Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, who was among those detained by the police, was released on Friday after hours of judicial interrogation.

On Thursday, Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin was removed from his post only a day after dozens of senior police officers, including his deputies, in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, were sacked.

The Turkish premier has dubbed the inquiry a “dirty operation,” saying those behind the probe were seeking to form a “state within a state.”

The operation is being widely interpreted as a challenge to the authority of Erdogan, who boasts of being pro-business and has pledged to root out corruption.

Turkish political observers also speculate that the police raids could have been driven by simmering tensions between the Erdogan government and influential US-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, ahead of elections next year.