Turkey Mine Disaster: Erdogan Loses His Grip

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/turkey-mine-disaster-creates-widespread-anger-at-erdogan-a-969823.html



A protester is kicked by Yusuf Yerkel (left), advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, during a protest against Erdogans visit to Soma, the site of the recent mine disaster.

Turkey Mine Disaster: Erdogan Loses His Grip
An Analysis By Raniah Salloum
May 16, 2014 – 01:04 PM

This Tuesday's explosion in a coal mine near Soma, Turkey, is the worst industrial disaster in the Turkish history. So far, the bodies of 284 people have been recovered, but no end to the horror is in sight.

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"This disaster is unlike the events that we've seen in Turkey thus far -- the Gezi protests, the corruption scandals, the police violence against demonstrators," says Umut Ozkirimli, a Turkey expert at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Sweden's Lund University. "Not only because of the scope of the tragedy, but because of the people that lost their lives."

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Even those who usually stick with Erdogan are outraged, and commentators close to the Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) are asking for the resignation of those ministers responsible, especially Taner Yildiz, the minister of energy and natural resources.

Apparently, there were warning signals: Ozgur Ozel, a representative from the region's Kemalist opposition, had pushed for more inspectors in the mines just a few weeks earlier, because many people from his electoral district had complained about the mine's safety situation. But the AKP turned a deaf ear to the request on April 29, 13 days before the cataclysmic disaster.