The fires untended

At times it seems that the Turks are fiddling while Rome burns, as Nero is alleged to have done in the year A.D. 64. Turkey’s unemployed are more numerous while industrial production and exports are in steep decline. Yet an Ankara judge’s attempt to drag President Abdullah Gul into court for alleged misuse of party funds a decade ago is almost at the top of the current political agenda. When the Welfare Party, predecessor of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), was compulsorily wound up in 1997, its funds should have been handed over to the state, says the judge. In fact, they were channeled into helping set up the AKP. Though Gul was a member of the Welfare Party, his responsibilities were for foreign affairs, not internal party finance. There can be little doubt that the embezzlement charge has less to do with maintaining financial probity than with