Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today hit back at critics who have alleged that he has been stalling a corruption investigation reaching his family, while a lawyer says the leader's son was ready to give testimony to prosecutors.
Erdogan last month dismissed four government ministers implicated in a vast corruption and bribery scandal surrounding alleged illicit money transfers to Iran and bribery for construction projects.
He then quickly moved to replace police officials involved in the investigation, an action which news reports said thwarted a second corruption probe that sought to question his son, Bilal Erdogan, among others. Police allegedly refused to bring Erdogan's son for questioning on prosecutors' orders.
Erdogan insists the corruption investigation targeting people close to him has been orchestrated by an Islamic movement led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan says Gulen's followers have risen to key positions in Turkey's judiciary and police, and that they want to harm the government ahead of local elections in March.
Gulen has denied any involvement in the probe but hundreds of police officials, prosecutors and judges either directly involved in the investigations or believed to sympathise with the religious movement have been removed from posts and reassigned to other positions.
"If you are honest and Honourable, you'll come and show the evidence," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara today, responding to opposition party accusations that the government was trying to cover up a corruption inquiry focusing on his son.
He then threatened to reveal a corruption file on the opposition party's strong candidate for the mayor of Istanbul in the March local elections, unless the opposition party releases the file by Sunday.
In a more conciliatory gesture, Erdogan said that some articles of much-criticised draft legislation which critics say aims to tighten government control over the judiciary could be put on hold. Opposition parties say the measure would allow the government to block corruption investigations, and the European Union expressed concerns, calling on Turkey to respect the principles of rule of law and the separation of powers.
The state-run Anadolu Agency quoted lawyer Ahmet Ozel as saying late yesterday that 33-year old Bilal Erdogan was prepared to give testimony but he had not received any papers summoning him to testify.
"My client is ready to go and testify to prosecutors upon reception of an official notification," Anadolu quoted Ozel as saying.
