Ruling AKP plans to expand overseas with nine new offices

ANKARA

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to open nine more offices abroad, AKP Deputy Chair Mehdi Eker said on Dec. 29.

Eker said the new “representative” offices would be based in the U.S., the U.K., Russia, Germany, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia.

“The AK Parti does not have a vision exclusively based on Turkey’s domestic politics. It has a vision about the world, humanity and civilization,” Eker told state-run Anadolu Agency.

“It is therefore quite natural that such a party has offices in the world’s important centers, as the party’s legal contact points,” he added, noting that the opening of the new offices was “instructed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”

The AKP currently has just two offices abroad: One in Brussels and the other in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.