Turkish prime minister's office says leaked recordings are fake

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.-AFP

Leaked recordings of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son allegedly discussing how to hide large sums of money are fake, the premier’s office said, as the government grappled with a growing phonetapping scandal.

“The recordings... are the product of an immoral montage and completely untrue,” Erdogan’s office said in a statement late on Monday.

The phone conversations, posted on YouTube, allegedly reveal Erdogan asking his son to get rid of millions of euros (dollars) in cash from the son’s house.

The recordings were allegedly made in December, after dozens of the premier’s allies were detained in a high-level corruption probe that has thrown up a major challenge to Erdogan’s 11 years in power ahead of key local elections in March.

The prime minister has blamed his ally-turned-rival, US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, for instigating the probe, accusing him of seeking to create “a parallel state” in Turkey.

In a sign of further tensions, the Turkish government on Monday said thousands of influential people, including the premier, cabinet ministers and journalists, had been wiretapped by Gulen supporters in the police and the judiciary.

“Those who created this dirty setup targeting the prime minister of the Republic of Turkey will be held accountable within the law,” Erdogan’s office added.

Media sympathetic to Gulen quoted his lawyer Nurullah Albayrak as saying the allegations were “unfair”. “The only purpose of this situation is to incite hatred and division,” he said.

One of the former prosecutors Adnan Cimen also denied that anything illegal had taken place.

“These allegations are entirely without foundation. Not a single illegal operation was authorised,” Cimen told newspaper Milliyet.

The Star reported that so-called Gulenists had wiretapped more than 7,000 people, as well as the headquarters of the opposition Republic People’s Party (RPP), since 2011 on the pretext of trying to uncover terrorism plots.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said that he had been wiretapped, adding: “This is no longer a problem just for the (ruling) AK Party.”

Intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and one of his close allies were also among those targeted, along with many business people, activists and journalists, according to the newspaper reports.

Faruk Logoglu, a vice-president of the RPP who was reportedly one of those targeted, dismissed the claims as an attempt by Erdogan to “support his rhetoric about a parallel state that he uses against the Gulen movement”.

The corruption scandal has thrown up one of the most serious challenges to Erdogan’s 11 years in power ahead of key local elections in March.

The mass eavesdropping reports come as parliament began debating a new bill aimed at giving the intelligence agency a free hand in carrying out undercover missions and surveillance at home and abroad — without the need for a court order.

Erdogan has come under fire for what critics see as increasingly authoritarian policies, including curbs on the judiciary and the Internet.