Turkey: Erdogan’s ‘mea culpa’ for delays in rescue efforts

A ‘mea culpa’ expected. “In the first days, we were not able to carry out the work as efficiently as we wanted in Adiyaman,” the Turkish head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on February 27, amid a complex panorama.

“The destructive impact of the tremors, the adverse weather and the challenges due to damaged infrastructure” are some of the reasons outlined by the Turkish leader as justification.

But this apology may also have been prompted by the growing number of deaths, the accusations that weigh on the Executive for the supposed minimum requirements to the contractors of the hundreds of thousands of buildings destroyed and a prompt appointment with the polls.

The president also required the understanding of the inhabitants of the affected areas in the midst of difficulties and also stressed his commitment to a rapid reconstruction.

However, nature does not seem to help. A new earthquake in the southwest of the country killed at least 100 people, adding to the most recent government figures: 44,374 fatalities in total.

Some 30 buildings did not resist the new tremor of this February 27, located at 5.6 magnitude on the Richter scale.

An unknown number of people were left under the rubble, but several were rescued. These survivors were collecting their belongings, abandoned after the first earthquakes that shook the nation three weeks ago, when they were surprised by the new telluric movement.

“This is an extraordinary activity,” said Orhan Tatar, director general of earthquake and risk reduction at the Turkish Emergency and Disaster Management Authority. According to the official, four new earthquakes have been reported in the region (included in the province of Malatya) in recent weeks, accompanied by some 45 aftershocks with magnitudes between 5 and 6 degrees.

The investigations into the high number of collapses are not stopping either: there are already 184 detainees for alleged complicity in the collapses, confirming that the focus is now on the construction companies.

Signs of discontent in sports days

In a country where dissenting voices from the ‘establishment’ are viewed with particular suspicion, the Turks have not been silent in the face of the difficult conditions created by the earthquakes and the state’s response.

In football matches held this weekend by the local league, calls for the resignation of the Government were heard loudly.

As reported by the Reuters agency, fans of Besiktas, one of the main teams in the Turkish league, threw thousands of stuffed animals onto the playing field to be donated to the affected children. This action was accompanied by demands to resign from the ministerial train.

The followers of another of the Turkish clubs, Fenerbahce, were not far behind in their discontent either. From the stands the motto “twenty years of lies and cheats, resign” was heard.

The harsh response to anti-government protests

The response, both political and sporting, was not long in coming. “The Nationalist Movement Party strongly condemns the use of sport in dirty politics during such sensitive and painful days for our country,” said Devlet Bahceli, leader of that political party, a member of the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party) of Erdoğan.

For its part, the club Caykur Rizespor, from Erdogan’s hometown, described the fans’ grievance towards the state leadership as “provocative acts” and called the protesters “sewer rats”.

The Minister of the Interior, Suleyman Soylu, also defended the Government: “If someone wants to do politics, there will be elections in the next few days (…) But those who want to turn sport into a political arena must pay attention to the efforts of the State, the nation and civil society”, he highlighted on Twitter.

Finally, the Minister of Sports also made his vision known. Mehmet Kasapoglu followed the line of message used by the defenders of the Government, and pointed directly to certain groups of generating “targeted provocations” with the aim of fracturing the unity of the country.

In other reports of protests, riot police intervened in several outbreaks. In downtown Istanbul, dozens of supporters and members of the far-left Turkish Workers’ Party were arrested as they demonstrated against the government.

with Reuters