Turkey’s former EU Minister Egemen Bağış has admitted receiving gifts including “chocolate, shirts and ties” from Iranian-Azeri businessman Reza Zarrab and said he helped some of Zarrab’s friends receive visas, speaking at a parliamentary commission on corruption allegations on November 27. He also described “gift giving” as a “Turkish tradition,” Hurriyet Daily News reports on Friday.
Bağış denied claims that he had received bribes from Zarrab, as had been alleged in the December 17 investigation. However, he told the commission that acquaintances had sent “some gifts” to his house on special days such as New Year and religious holidays, denying that any of these gifts were money.
The former minister said he met with Reza Zarrab in the United States via Zarrab’s wife Ebru Gündeş, who is a well-known Turkish singer. He said Zarrab had sent a present as part of their “humanly relations” and he later called Zarrab to thank him for the gift.
Bağış also stated that he helped friends of Zarrab to get visas for Turkey, but added that he had extended such help to many other people too.
When asked about Zarrab’s men talking over the phone about $500,000, wiretap recordings of which were included in the December 17 probe, Bağış said he had “nothing to do with this.”
