The effects of the abortive resignation of Turkey’s powerful interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, late Sunday continued to reverberate today, in what many see as widening cracks in the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a late night tweet, Soylu said he was stepping down over his role in a weekend coronavirus lockdown across 31 cities that was declared just hours before it went into effect at midnight local time Friday. The announcement sent tens of thousands of panicked Turks on a shopping orgy, sharply heightening the risk of contagion. Images of citizens without protective masks jostling to snap up bread and other supplies sparked widespread criticism of the curfew as the number of cases continues its upward spiral in the country of 83 million.
