World press on Erdogan's attitude to media (July 3, 2012)

Hurriyet published an article devoted to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan's attitute to the media. "Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is constantly complaining about the media," the author of the article, Sedat Ergin, says. "He is always in a state of complaint. Well, which topic is it, do you think, that the prime minister is grumbling about most? When we scan all his speeches of the past six months, we see that at the top of the list of media complaints are terrorism and the Kurdish issue," he adds.

"There is an ironic side to the fact that Erdoğan is complaining about the media to this extent while he is also generally accepted as the prime minister who has received the widest support from the media in the entirety of our country’s multi-party era," the article reads.

"One essential reason for this is the prime minister’s wish to see everyone in the media taking the same position that he does on the Kurdish issue and unite under the same national stance. While he did not make a big deal of journalists visiting Kandil in the past, now, he makes a big deal out of it. At the same time, we may also add to the equation the fact that terrorism and the Kurdish issue are maybe the issues that have constrained him most as prime minister," the author says.

"However, apart from these factors, these complaints are also probably a reflection of the general pattern of complaining about the media embedded in the prime minister’s role. It could be that the drive to showdowns with the media, which goes far back into the past, and has never been eliminated, is playing a role in here," the author believes.