Turkish PM slams columnists, media bosses

ANKARA

AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has rebuffed Turkish columnists who criticized Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s visit to Myanmar, calling on media bosses to not continue to employ such journalists in their news outlets. 

“Some [columnists] wrote articles asking why the foreign minister went to Myanmar. ‘I understand the visit of the prime minister’s wife and daughter, but why does the foreign minister go,’ they said. I’m addressing the media boss [who owns that newspaper]; shame on you. How do you keep these men as columnists? You give columns to those who don’t have any ambition, passion and excitement. They are strangers to this nation and the history of this nation. They are not worried by the worries of this nation,” Erdoğan said late Saturday in Istanbul at an iftar dinner.

Some Turkish columnists criticized Foreign Minister Davutoğlu’s visit to the sectarian conflict hit southeastern Asian country.

Cüneyt Özdemir, a columnist for daily Radikal, and Daily Milliyet columnist, Aslı Aydıntaşbaş criticized Davutoğlu’s visit to Myanmar, indicating that conflict in Syria was much heavier than that in Myanmar and that Turkey should be concerned with Syria first. 

“Aleppo is where we should go before Rohingya. I’m saying this in the name of humanity, not for the Muslim matter,” Aytıntaşbaş wrote on Aug. 9.