Hürriyet Daily News published an article by Murat Yetkin headlined "Erdoğan isolates himself in power."
"On the road to have more control over ruling the country, Turkish Prime Minister Tayip Erdoğan seemingly isolates himself in power; in his own government’s power," the article reads. "Getting isolated in search of feeling more secure has started to show itself in many moves of Erdoğan."
"Bekir Bozdağ, the new Justice Minister of Erdoğan following the December 25 cabinet reshuffle, (after the start of the major graft probe on December 17, 2013) appointed his brother Ünal Bozdağ as his Chief Advisor, seemingly another move of the government members in order to feel more comfortable among themselves. An advisor to PM Erdoğan defended the Justice Minister’s move as “moving his brother to a more passive position,” who was already the deputy head of the personnel department of the same ministry. Erdoğan had placed some of his closest advisors to cabinet in the recent reshuffle; his former translator, one of his former script writers and most importantly, his undersecretary," the author writes.
"The criticism of Turkey’s Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek on January 3 of the Turkish Justice system was actually stronger than any other opposition parties’. Serving as the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Parti) justice minister and deputy prime minister himself, before getting elected as speaker, Çiçek deplored that Article 138 of the Turkish Constitution, on the “independence of courts,” is now dead. Yet the new Justice Minister Bozdağ is currently working on a plan to bring more government and Parliament (arithmetically dominated by government) control over the judiciary," Yetkin writes. "Hüseyin Gülerce, a columnist close to Gülen wrote on Friday that we have to expect the unexpected as Turkey gets closer to Presidential elections in August; a scary prophecy in itself."
