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Turkish Press Review

Turkish dailies cover final coalition talks between AK Party and CHP plus a major Supreme Military Council meeting

04.08.2015 - Update : 04.08.2015
Turkish Press Review

ISTANBUL

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

Turkish dailies on Tuesday reported that the country’s two largest parliamentary parties had completed exploratory talks on forming a coalition government.

Teams from the Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Republican People's Party (CHP) completed the talks in 11 days, discussing foreign policy, education and the economy, HABERTURK wrote.

These are the fields where the parties could not reach agreement, MILLIYET claimed, adding that the two sides met five times and spent almost 30 hours in talks.

"We have made our assessments between the two parties with mutual courtesy and respect,” SABAH quoted Omer Celik, the minister heading the AK Party delegation, as saying.

His counterpart, CHP Deputy Chairman Haluk Koc, said there were issues where the two sides agreed but “serious and key discrepancies and differences on certain issues existed", the paper wrote.

According to VATAN, the teams from both parties will now compile reports to submit to their leaders, who will decide on the need for further talks.

Since the June 7 general election, after the first-placed AK Party lost its majority in parliament, the four parliamentary parties have been negotiating over a possible coalition government, with the focus being on a deal between the two largest groups: the AK Party and the CHP.

If no coalition appears, the country may have to hold a new election around the end of November.

Dailies also covered the first day of a three-day annual session of Turkey's Supreme Military Council.

The council convened under Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday at the headquarters of General Staff in the capital, Ankara.

It discussed promotions, tenure extensions and retirements of Turkish Armed Forces staff, AKSAM reported.

CUMHURIYET pointed to a lunch hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for army, air force and naval chiefs on the first day, saying it is "the first such thing which was normally done on the last day of the council to inform the President over the issues handled at the council”.

Erdogan also held a 30-minute separate "unexpected" meeting with Davutoglu and Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel, VATAN said.

In other news, HABER TURK reported that two soldiers who were killed in eastern Agri province in Sunday's suicide attack -- allegedly carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) -- were buried, with mourners chanting in Kurdish.

"The mother of [one of the killed soldiers] Mansur Cengiz refused to cry at the funeral so as to 'not make the terrorists happy'," VATAN wrote.

Over 4,000 people attended, HURRIYET wrote, adding the other soldier, Medet Mat, was buried at midnight in his hometown.

The incident was just one of the recent waves of deadly attacks across the country for which the Turkish government blames the PKK -- listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

Some papers also reported on the death of author Tulu Gumustekin, the spouse of Kaan Terzioglu, who is CEO of Turkey’s largest mobile phone operator, Turkcell.

Gumustekin, 47, who had been suffering from a liver condition, died on Monday in Italy where she was holidaying, AKSAM wrote.

Erdogan, as well as several Turkish ministers and CEOs of well-known companies, attended her funeral at Fatih Mosque in Istanbul.

In financial news, economic newspaper DUNYA ran a front-page story covering the opening of the Athens Exchange. The paper reported that that there was a sharp, 23 percent decrease upon opening in the market which had been closed since June 27 amid Greece’s financial crisis.

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