Hürriyet Daily News published an article by Murat Yetkin headlined "Is Turkey ready for a heavy-handed president?"
"Thanks to mobile phone technology, as new videos appear, together with at least one witness, (or rather victim), it has become clearer that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan might have chased a group of protesters into a shop with his bodyguards. He then appeared to slap at least one of them, a day after the biggest ever mine disaster in Turkey on May 13 in the western Turkish town of Soma, where 284 miners have been announced dead so far. The official death toll may go up to 302, according to officials," the article reads.
"Taner Kuruca, a young miner himself, said he did not mean to make the prime minister angry and Erdoğan had struck an “unintentional” slap to his face. He added that after Erdoğan, his bodyguards had beaten him up in the same market. The scars and bruises on his neck, shoulders and arms were visible in a TV interview. He probably added that word “unintentionally” there in order to soften the case (he chose not to sue Erdoğan) because of fear; at least the fear of losing his job," the author writes.
"It could be understood and respected if a prime minister of a democratic country had entered a nearby shop to wait until the mourning protesters had calmed down instead of sending police officers at them to disperse them by force. It is totally the opposite to chase protesters, become involved in personal, physical contact and have them beaten up," Yetkin underlines.
"The Soma example might have shown that no one in Turkey is exempt from the probability of being touched by Erdoğan personally if they do or say anything to annoy him," the article reads.
"The question is whether Turkey is ready to be ruled by a heavy-handed president, as Erdoğan is currently the only apparent candidate for the presidential elections to be held in August," the author concludes.
The Jerusalem Post published an article by Michael Wilner devoted to the Iranian nuclear talks held in Vienna.
"Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program appear to have hit a wall, as Iran charged Western powers on Friday with “excessive demands” for a peaceful resolution to the crisis while the US warned that running out of time for diplomacy," the author writes.
"The fourth round of negotiations in Vienna, with the goal of reaching a comprehensive solution to the longstanding nuclear impasse, ended without a press conference from the parties – a linchpin in previous rounds between Iran, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany," the article reads.
"An interim deal reached last fall grants world powers and Iran until July 20 to negotiate a comprehensive plan of action," the news paper informs.
"The US and Iranian statements might be designed in part to raise pressure on the other side, but they also betrayed stubbornly deep differences that must be overcome if intense diplomacy is to succeed in clinching," the author writes.
