Erdoğan shoots himself in foot on anniversary of graft probe

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has been blasting European institutions, the EU and others over their criticism of media freedom, judicial independence and the general quality of democracy here.

It was only a week ago that Ankara hosted a high-ranking EU delegation chaired by Federico Mogherini, asking the EU to resume membership negotiations, which have been almost frozen for years.
Now, the same Erdoğan tells Europe to mind its own business.

Mogherini has said she was surprised by this reaction, proving that she is a beginner in “Erdoğan 101.”
It is obvious that if the timing of the operation against the Zaman media group - which is close to Erdoğan’s former ally, now arch-enemy Fethullah Gülen - was aimed at distracting public attention from the first anniversary of Turkey’s biggest graft probe operation on Dec. 17, 2013, then it failed.

It is true that not only Erdoğan, but also Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his Cabinet, believe the graft probes of Dec. 17 and 25 last year - which embroiled Erdoğan’s ministers, comrades and family members - were actually parts of a plot by Gülenists to overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government.

It is also true that for the last year, Erdoğan and Davutoğlu did much to root out Gülenists from the judiciary and the security bureaucracy (just like Gülenists previously did to root out secular modernists on behalf of Erdoğan). Thanks to this purging, the probe files were closed.

(By the way, the deadline for the Parliamentary Commission investigating the bribery accusations against four former ministers under Erdoğan - Muammer Güler, Zafer Çağlayan, Erdoğan Bayraktar and Egemen Bağış - expires on Dec. 26, with rumors that...