Turkey’s president to hold Women’s Day reception

ANKARA

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to hold a reception on next Tuesday, March 8, International Women’s Day, for a variety of women, including workers, mothers and wives of martyred soldiers, governors, and university heads.

According to sources at the presidency, the reception will be held at the presidential palace and an estimated 250 guests have been invited.

Among the guests are five Syrian women who fled their country due to the war, policewomen, waitresses, and members of the palace’s cleaning staff.

Gokcen Camur, the wife of Police Commissioner Ahmet Camur, who was martyred in Turkey’s Hakkari province, and Seniha Onul, the mother of police officer Gokhan Emre Orul, who was killed in a car accident while on duty, have also been invited.

Prominent women from across Turkey will attend the event.

Mahinur Tunca, who stayed with her bedridden husband during a fire that broke out in a five-story building in Istanbul’s Maltepe district, along with Tulay Yazlik, who saved her husband’s life when he had a heart attack in Mersin’s Tarsus district, will also attend the reception.

Among the guests are Leyla Ildirli, who has been caring for a deaf and visually impaired 81-year-old homeless man for 13 years, in line with her father’s will in Beysehir, Konya, and Turkan Harmankaya, who has been looking after a child for 14 years, whom she later found out to be disabled, and Sevim Kocak, who tries to meet the school costs of her two children by polishing shoes in the Cankiri province.

The event will also be attended by Aynur Eken, Turkey’s first female head of a mosque association (who began construction of a mosque in the Eskisehir province after seeing it in a dream); Hulya Durmaz, an ambulance driver in the Bursa province; Semin Ozturk, Turkey’s first aerobatics pilot; and flight attendant Sinem Aydemir, who saved a baby’s life during a flight.

Erdogan has also invited a number of elderly women he met during his various visits around Turkey.