Turkey's interior minister resigns, criticized for handling containment

Text by: Anne Andlauer

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu resigned on Sunday evening. The minister had announced at the last minute Friday the confinement of residents of 31 major cities for 48 hours to curb the epidemic of Covid-19, pushing crowds of Turks panicked in shops to stock up on supplies.

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From our correspondent in Istanbul,

Süleyman Soylu announced his resignation on Twitter, in a short message entirely devoted to the reason for his departure: the Friday night fiasco, when more than 63 million Turks had learned at the last moment that they would remain confined to their homes throughout the weekend.

According to official figures, some 300,000 of them had rushed to shops that were still open at the same time, risking exposure to the coronavirus or passing it on to others.

► Read also: Coronavirus: after the panic, the Turks cloistered at home

The outgoing Minister assures bear " full responsibility " for this decision and its consequences. He asked for “ forgiveness ” not only from the nation, but also from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to whom he swore loyalty “ until the end of (his) life ”. The Turkish president no doubt hopes, with this resignation that looks more like an ouster, to put an end to the controversy created by these scenes of chaos.

The departure of Süleyman Soylu is a political earthquake on the scale of Turkey. The Minister of the Interior was an emblematic and very media figure of the government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He had arrived at this post just after the attempted coup in the summer of 2016 and embodied, in the eyes of opponents and human rights defenders, the repressive turn in recent years.

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• Turkey
• Coronavirus
• Health and Medicine
• Containment

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