December 29, 2015

Longstanding Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan Transitioned from Head of Government (Prime Minister) to Head of State (President) in 2014

Papst Franziskus besucht Straßburg 25.11.2014 Europarat
After his Strasbourg EU visit, the pope moves on to EU-aspirant Turkey. Turkey’s President and former Primer Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a Fethullah Gulen disciple.

Erdogan hosts people's pope, in plush new palace

November 28, 2014

AFP/Reuters - Pope Francis, in his Alitalia jet, arrived in Turkey on November 25, 2014, his first visit to the country. The austere Argentine will be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's guest of honor in Ankara's controversial new, 1,000-room presidential palace. 


On Pope Francis' first of his three day in the country,  his mission was to strengthen ties with Muslim leaders while condemning violence against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East. Francis held talks with then-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the top cleric in the Muslim-majority secular country.

The visit came as the self-styled "Islamic State" laid claim to large parts of Iraq and Syria, just across Turkey's southern border. At the time, Turkey was sheltering over 1 million refugees from Syria, thousands of them Christians.

The 77-year-old Argentine, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, moved on to Istanbul with a visit to the Hagia Sophia — the great Byzantine church that was turned into a mosque in 1453 and now serves as a museum — one of the highlights on his itinerary.

Some 2,700 police supervised the visit in Turkey's capital, Ankara, with more than 7,000 officers ready for Francis' Istanbul appointments.

A palace fit for a … president

Francis became by far the highest profile guest ever to visit Turkey's new presidential palace, inaugurated in October 2014 to coincide with longstanding Prime Minister Erdogan's transition from head of government to head of state.

The building is by no means universally popular. The lavish, 1,000-room palace cost just over 500 million euros (well over $600 million) so far, with a major mosque complex and other extensions still reportedly planned.


The presidential palace, tentatively called Ak Saray ("White Palace") was built under controversial circumstances, in a wooded area within the Ataturk Forest Farm in Ankara. The construction went ahead despite environmental concerns and court orders, prompting its critics to instead call it Kacak Saray ("Illegal Palace").


The head of an Ankara architects' organization, Tezcan Karakus Candan, wrote a letter to the pope on behalf of the group, asking him "not to take part in the planned ceremony in an unapproved building." The Vatican acknowledged receipt of the letter but said that the pope would of course meet Erdogan where his host requested.

"Like any polite person, the pope will go to the place where the president wishes to receive him," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

Orthodox appointments in Istanbul

Erdgoan also wrote to the pope ahead of his visit, saying he had "favorably followed" Francis' "worthwhile efforts for world peace, fraternity and for peace amongst peoples" since taking up the papacy.

Turkey's own Christian community is tiny, comprising some 80,000 people in a country of some 75 million Muslims, but stretches across many denominations. Francis was expected instead to focus his speeches on the plight of Christians throughout the Middle East, not least in war-torn Iraq and Syria, where their numbers are demonstrably dwindling.

In Istanbul, the pope met Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, as part of his efforts to improve ties between the ancient western and eastern wings of Christianity.

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Erdogan's palace resembles the fortress of Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen, who has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the world.

... Fethullah Gulen, right, during his visit to Istanbul on Feb. 25, 1998
Fethullah Gulen, right, during his visit to Istanbul on Feb. 25, 1998
 
Gulen has amassed a fortune—thanks, in part, to the CIA—of $25 billion. The Turkish government remains controlled by Gulen, and Gulen has wielded political allegiances in Washington that have resulted in the placement of Turkish Muslims in the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other national security organizations. He has created well-heeled lobbies to promote the cause of Islam and to develop Islamic candidates for political office. He has formed close friendships with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, and George W. Bush. Gulen has also established thousands of schools throughout the world, where students are indoctrinated in the tenets of political Islam. More than 100 of these schools, funded by American taxpayers, are located in the United States. He lives in his fortress in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. [Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., The Last Crusade, Mounting Crisis Between Turkey and Israel Created in Pennsylvania, June 1, 2010]

1857 Mt. Eaton Road, Saylorsburg, PA (Gulen's Headquarters)




CIA’s Favorite Channel, New York Times, Lobbies for Mullah Fethullah Gulen

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