Four more ministers in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cabinet may leave their seats after Abdülhamit Gül resigned from his post as justice minister, daily Cumhuriyet reported on Sunday.
Erdoğan may also replace Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, and Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli, but he will most likely spread the changes out over a longer period, the newspaper said.
The most significant possible change would be Çavuşoğlu, who may be replaced with Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın, it added. Meanwhile, Pakdemirli has reportedly fallen out of Erdoğan’s good graces due to the handling of last summer’s forest fires and firefighting aircraft, it said.
Gül’s resignation is seen as a further falling out with the Islamist-conservative tradition that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) grew out of, according to Cumhuriyet. The former minister had been close to AKP deputy chairman Numan Kurtulmuş, and both served for long years in several such parties.
The former minister may have also allowed Hakyol and Menzil Islamic sects to set up their own cadres in the ministry’s ranks, the newspaper said.
Gül’s resignation was considered to be a sign of Erdoğan siding with former prime minister Binali Yıldırım in ongoing intra-party disputes, it added.
The former minister also had issues with Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, and had objected to Erdoğan’s orders in the past, according to Cumhuriyet. The president also was unsatisfied with Gül’s performance against judges and prosecutors allegedly connected with the failed coup attempt in 2016, it said.
Another reason for rising tensions in the AKP, according to Cumhuriyet, is the election deal it made with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), where the MHP was promised two seats at the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) but later ended up with only one.
Ahval, Cumhuriyet