The Panama Papers scandal, which led to the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland and has also troubled many other world businessmen, politicians and celebrities, has not yet fully reached Turkey. It has been reported in Turkish media that “101 companies and 10 clients” from Turkey are also involved, and their names will be disclosed in May. So far, therefore, the scandal has had no political repercussions inside Turkey.
However, certain elements of the Turkish media have already began cooking up the idea that the Panama Papers can have political implications for Turkey as yet another nefarious conspiracy against the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In a long editorial in Yeni Safak, one of the many pro-Erdogan newspapers, Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Karagul made his argument emphatically on April 7. “The release of the Panama Papers has me seriously worried,” Karagul wrote. “I believe that this is not a money laundering operation or a tax issue. … It is the extension of a much bigger plan, a showdown project.”
