The presentation of gifts by Afyonkarahisar Governor İrfan Balkanlıoğlu to Turkey's top general during a visit two days after 25 soldiers died in a munitions depot blast has caused public outrage, Hurriyet reports.
Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel visited a garrison in the Anatolian province of Afyonkarahisar on Sept. 7 after an explosion at a munitions depot there killed 25 soldiers on Sept. 5.
Özel inspected the blast site and later paid a visit to Afyonkarahisar Gov. Balkanlıoğlu at the governorship to offer his condolences. There, Balkanlıoğlu presented local goods as gifts to Özel and placed pictures of the visit on the governorship's official website. Social media exploded in a fury after news of the incident spread over the Internet.
Reports of the gift ceremony and subsequent reactions made the top news on Turkish news websites within hours of the incident, as the government scrambled to protect its governor. Hüseyin Çelik, from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said on Sept. 7 that there was nothing unusual about the presentation of gifts and that it was a "tradition to give presents to a visitor … There is nothing odd about this, they did not dance or laugh in joy or anything," Çelik said.
Turkish governor, army chief face public fury over gifts
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