		<div class="wpcnt">
			<div class="wpa">
				<span class="wpa-about">Advertisements</span>
				<div class="u top_amp">
							<amp-ad width="300" height="265"
		 type="pubmine"
		 data-siteid="111265417"
		 data-section="2">
		</amp-ad>
				</div>
			</div>
		</div><p>President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been returned as leader of Turkey&#8217;s ruling party.</p>
<p>The Justice and Development Party, or AK Party, re-elected Mr Erdogan, its co-founder, at a congress where he was the only candidate for chairman.</p>
<p>A narrow victory in a referendum last month to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency allows him to be both the head of state and of a political party.</p>
<p>Speaking to tens of thousands of people in Ankara, Mr Erdogan said he was back after &#8220;998 days of separation&#8221; from the party and outlined a vision for its immediate future and elections scheduled for November 2019 with new executive and grassroots teams.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;This congress is the AK Party&#8217;s rebirth,&#8221;</i> he said before the vote. &#8220;AK Party is not just its voters&#8217; party, it&#8217;s the party for all of our 80 million citizens.&#8221;</p>
<p>Elected with 1,414 votes, Mr Erdogan set the party&#8217;s course for what he called a &#8220;new era&#8221; of reforms.</p>
<p>&#8220;The upcoming months will be a period of soaring in all areas, including combating terror, the economy, expanding rights and freedoms and investments,&#8221; the president said.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan was forced to cut his formal ties to the party when he became the country&#8217;s first directly-elected president in 2014.</p>
<p>Last month&#8217;s referendum eliminated a constitutional requirement mandating that presidents be neutral and cut ties with their political parties.</p>
<p>Critics say the referendum transforming Turkey&#8217;s parliamentary governing system to an executive presidency was marred by allegations of election fraud.</p>
<p>The vote took place under a state of emergency imposed in the wake of last year&#8217;s failed coup.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan defended the state of emergency and said it would remain in place &#8220;until the situation reaches peace and welfare&#8221;. He said it had not affected civil rights.</p>
<p>Turkey blames the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for the July 15 coup attempt that left nearly 270 dead &#8211; a charge Mr Gulen has denied.</p>
<p>Under the state of emergency, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 dismissed from public service for alleged connections to the cleric and groups Turkey deems terror organisations.</p>
<p>A dozen lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish opposition party, including its co-presidents, are behind bars along with some 160 journalists.</p>
<p>Hours before the congress convened, two suspected Islamic State militants were killed in an Ankara police operation.</p>
<p>The operation follows a string of attacks blamed on the Islamic State (IS) group, which led to Turkey&#8217;s cross-border operation into northern Syria to combat both IS and US-backed Syrian Kurdish militants.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan&#8217;s meeting with US President Donald Trump last week resolved little of the discord over his administration&#8217;s decision to more heavily-arm Syrian Kurdish militants as part of the fight against IS.</p>
<p>Turkey considers the People&#8217;s Protection Units, or YPG, in Syria a terror organisation and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers&#8217; Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan has said he would retaliate if the YPG posed a security threat, signalling more cross-border operations.</p>
			<div style="padding-bottom:15px;" class="wordads-tag" data-slot-type="belowpost">
				<div id="atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed1360d192f">
					<script type="text/javascript">
						window.getAdSnippetCallback = function () {
							if ( false === ( window.isWatlV1 ?? false ) ) {
								// Use Aditude scripts.
								window.tudeMappings = window.tudeMappings || [];
								window.tudeMappings.push( {
									divId: 'atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed1360d192f',
									format: 'belowpost',
								} );
							}
						}

						if ( document.readyState === 'loading' ) {
							document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', window.getAdSnippetCallback );
						} else {
							window.getAdSnippetCallback();
						}
					</script>
				</div>
			</div>
Discover more from London Glossy Post
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
