Turkish Press Review

ISTANBUL

Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Friday dailies covered Turkish main opposition party’s election promise of creating a megacity, the announcement of a possible suspect in the attack against offices of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party as well as the opening of a new space center.

“A new megacity,” was HURRIYET’s headline highlighting the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s new campaign promise.

The party chairman, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said the new city would be "the project of the century" and become an economic and energy hub between East and West.

“CHP’s megaproject,” was MILLIYET’s headline while VATAN went with “A megacity in Anatolia.”

Claiming that the project will create $147 billion in added value for the Turkish economy, Kilicdaroglu said: "It will provide employment opportunities for more than 2 million people and cost $200 billion with 20 percent of public investment and 80 percent of private investment."

The “megaplan" constitutes one of the major CHP proposals ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The party's platform had so far mainly focused on the economy.

STAR reported Friday that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had criticized CHP’s most recent campaign pledge. Davutoglu said his rival had stolen the idea from a book he wrote 15 years ago, according to the daily.

In other news, Turkish dailies said a suspect in the twin bombing of offices of the Turkish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) earlier this week was linked to the banned Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which was responsible for the murder of a senior prosecutor in an Istanbul court on March 31.

“The attacker is a member of DHKP-C,” was TURKIYE’s headline, citing Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu during an election rally in Sinop in northern Turkey.

MILLIYET reported that the Interior Ministry said the suspect had already been arrested in 2007 for his links with the radical group. The ministry said that efforts were underway to apprehend the suspect.

The explosions happened almost simultaneously on Monday morning, injuring six people. The HDP is participating in parliamentary elections for the first time as a party on June 7.

Certain dailies covered Turkish President Erdogan’s wish to give an armored Mercedes model car to Mehmet Gormez, the head of the Religious Affairs, who has been the target of some controversy as of late.

“An armored car to the Religion Affairs from Erdogan,” was AKSAM’s headline.

While returning from Bosnia, Erdogan told press members on the plane that he would give a Mercedes belonging to the Turkish Presidency to Gormez.

Erdogan’s decision comes after Gormez’s move to return an official luxury car after HURRIYET had reported last December that Religious Affairs had bought a Mercedes costing 1 million Turkish liras (approximately $368,500 on the current exchange rate).

The report created a controversy over whether the head of Religious Affairs should have access to such a luxury car. Religious Affairs denied the report, which stated that the car had been bought using money from the Turkey Diyanet Foundation's budget, which is, nonetheless, under Religious Affair's tutelage.

“I did not get in that car, not even for a day. We will return it to show the example,” Gormez had said in a television interview on May 4, 2015.

The Spacecraft Assembly, Integration and Test Center officially opened in Ankara on Thursday.

“A first step into the space,” was TURKIYE’s headline while STAR opted for, “Turkey’s space age”.

Erdogan welcomed the new venture, run by defense contractor Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

The center will initially test the Gokturk-1 satellite, a civil and military observation satellite due to be launched in November.