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Erdogan’s Muddled Plan For Yassiada Memorial

Erdogan uses a historical tragedy to initiate a profit-oriented project on Yassiada Island, the symbol of the 1960 coup that resulted in the execution of then-premier Adnan Menderes, the man Erdogan idolizes. 
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan displays a watch with a signature of former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes engraved on it, during a rally of his ruling AK Party to campaign for Sunday's early parliamentary elections in Turkey's Black Sea city of Trabzon July 20, 2007. The watch was presented to him by a supporter.  REUTERS/Fatih Saribas  (TURKEY) - RTR1S2C8
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Yassiada is the symbol of the sorrows of Turkish democracy. It is the island where Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his aides stood trial following the May 27, 1960, military coup, before being sent to the gallows. Menderes, his foreign minister, Fatin Rustu Zorlu, and finance minister, Hasan Polatkan, were executed on Sept. 17, 1961, on Imrali Island, but it was Yassiada that lived on in Turkish memory as the symbol of mourning.

As Radikal Editor-in-Chief Eyup Can pointed out, people expected that Yassiada would become a place for painful remembrance, just as was Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years. The government, however, came up with a completely different option involving profit-making.

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