Turkey’s Regime Justice Minister Resigns, Erdogan Brings Back Bozdag
Turkey is bringing back Bekir Bozdag as justice minister, replacing Abdulhamit Gul, who resigned on Saturday, according to a statement in the Official Gazette.
“I have resigned from my duty as the minister of justice, which I have been serving since July 19, 2017,” Gul said in a Twitter post and thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for accepting his resignation without giving a reason for the departure.
Bozdag served as justice minister and deputy prime minister former Erdogan governments. Most recently, he has been the president of the Turkish Parliament Constitution Commission.
Critics have also voiced concern over Ankara’s deteriorating human rights record and its treatment of journalists, opposition figures, and others.
Erdogan also removed Sait Erdal Dincer as chairman of statistics Institute TUIK, the Gazette said, less than a year after his appointment and with potentially economically disruptive January inflation data due on February 3.
Embroiled in a currency crisis, Turkey has been dogged by soaring inflation, which rose to its highest-level during Erdogan’s 19-year rule in December and which a Reuters poll on Friday showed is expected to have hit a near 20-year high around 47 percent in January.
Erdogan has drawn criticism for his frequent overhaul of the country’s economic team, including replacing three central bank governors in the last two and a half years and changing his finance minister and other top officials.
Opposition parties and critics have accused TUIK of meddling with inflation and other official data, for political reasons. The institute has dismissed the allegation, but researchers have begun alternative inflation calculations.
Dincer’s successor is Erhan Cetinkaya, 40, who has been deputy chairman of the BDDK banking watchdog since 2019.
