Turkey, Twitter meet in Istanbul with representative office on agenda

Ahmet Can ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

Colin Crowell, Twitter’s head of global public policy, is expected to arrive to Turkey on Aug. 25 to hold talks with related parties and authorities for the establishment of an office. AA Photo

Senior officials from Twitter held a third meeting with the representatives from Turkey’s information technologies authority in Istanbul on Monday to discuss a number of issues, including opening a Twitter office in Turkey.

Tayfun Acarer, the head of the Turkish Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK), met with Sinead McSweeney, Twitter’s director of public policy of Europe, Middle East and Africa, for the third time this year on Aug. 25.

The prospects of Twitter opening an office in Turkey, as well as taxation concerns, were reportedly among the issues discussed.

Twitter’s vice president and global public policy head, Colin Crowell, who was expected to lead the Twitter delegation, did not attend the meeting.

Twitter currrently does not have an office in Turkey, despite Turkish authorities’ requests for it to open a local branch.

In April, Crowell met with representatives from Turkey’s information technologies authority to discuss the possibility of opening an office in the country.

Twitter’s management also met with representatives from the Turkish regulator in Dublin in May.
Turkey and Twitter have been on unfriendly terms after local courts demanded the removal of a number of web links, on the grounds that they violated privacy. The popular microblogging site has still yet to adhere to these rulings.

The country’s telecoms regulator, TİB, blocked access to the site in March, hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to “wipe out” the social media platform in a campaign speech. It was restored in April after the Constitutional Court ruled that the measure violated freedom of expression.