Former deputy PM says he is ‘embargoed’ on some TVs, including TRT

ISTANBUL

Former Deputy Prime Mnister Bülent Arınç (R) speaks to Hakan Çelik on CNNTürk.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has said some television channels, including the state-run TRT,
 have been imposing an "embargo" on him for the last two years.

“Some people ask me why I say certain things on television programs, but newspapers and televisions are my only communacation channels with certain people,” Arınç said Oct. 24 in a live interview with news channel CNNTürk.

“I have been embargoed on some television channels known to be our friends,” Arınç added. “I do not receive any invitations from them. Including the TRT, which I was in charge of. The television channels I can appear are certain, and these are the ones I appear on.”

Arınç was in charge of the TRT and state-run Anadolu Agency during his term as the deputy prime minister.

Arınç said even some people who praised the former deputy prime minister and ex-President Abdullah Gül were banned from appearing on certain television channels.

“Why I’m not on channel X, go ask the channels’ bosses,” he added.

Arınç, who did not run in the June 7 election and is not a candidate for Nov. 1, also said he has no immediate plan of retuning to active politics, but added he “should not be tested.”

“This is unfair, this is unjust,” Arınç said when asked about reports of establishing a new political party together with Gül.

“We have a response within the party, within the society. A group of adolescents open fire on us from the newspapers they own to weaken me, Ali Babacan, Hüseyin Çelik, Abdullah Gül. This helps neither the country nor the party,” he said in a reference to some columnists in the pro-government media.

“But they should not test us,” Arınç added. “They come on to us saying ‘they cannot actually do such thing.’ But if they start saying ‘nothing will happen even if they come together, establish a party,’ it will be their turn to start thinking.”