Erdogan Dismisses Mob Head’s Claims as ‘Plot’ Against Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the parliament in Ankara. (Reuters)
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the parliament in Ankara. (Reuters)
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Erdogan Dismisses Mob Head’s Claims as ‘Plot’ Against Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the parliament in Ankara. (Reuters)
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the parliament in Ankara. (Reuters)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said a series of severe allegations made against members of his entourage by a fugitive mafia boss were a plot against Turkey. He vowed to fight criminal gangs.

In a stream of videos posted on social media in recent weeks, convicted mob leader Sedat Peker has made stunning claims against ruling party figures that include alleged corruption, drug trafficking and a murder cover-up — maintaining there were close ties between senior officials and the underworld.

Peker has not so far produced documentary evidence to back up his allegations. His accusations have targeted Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, the son of former prime minister Binali Yildirim, and a convicted former interior minister as well as his son, who is a legislator from Erdogan’s ruling party.

The YouTube videos, which have hit millions of views, have led to opposition calls for Soylu’s resignation and for prosecutors to investigate Peker’s claims.

Breaking his weeks-long silence over the allegations, Erdogan described them as a “devious operation” targeting the country and his rule.

“We will spoil these games, these plots. No one should doubt that we will disrupt this devious operation,” Erdogan said, in an address to members of his ruling party.

“We pursue members of criminal gangs wherever in the world they flee to. We will not leave these criminals alone until we bring them back to our country and hand them over to the judiciary,” he said.

In his latest video released on Sunday, the 49-year-old crime boss who has been in and out of prison in Turkey, claimed that Yildirim’s son, Erkam Yildirim, had traveled to Venezuela to stake out possible narcotics smuggling routes.

Binali Yildirim firmly denied the allegation, insisting that his son, who owns a shipping company, had traveled to Caracas on a humanitarian mission to hand out COVID-19 testing kits and masks.

In the video, the crime boss also claimed to have had a close relationship with Interior Minister Soylu, who allegedly provided him with a security detail and warned him about an investigation into his group. Peker also claimed that Soylu had sought his help in a bid to defeat a rival group within the ruling party, which is led by Erdogan’s son-in-law.

Soylu has denied the claims in television interviews and has filed a criminal complaint against Peker.

Erdogan said Wednesday he firmly stands by Soylu and Yildirim.

Ahmet Davutoglu, an opposition party leader and former Erdogan ally who had served under him as prime minister from 2014 to 2016, called for a parliamentary investigation into the allegations and questioned the president’s support for Soylu.

“If President Tayyip Erdogan believes in Soylu’s innocence, he should have said this on the first day. Not after 25 days,” Davutoglu said.

Other allegations by Peker have targeted former interior minister Mehmet Agar, and his son Tolga Agar, a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party. Peker claimed Tolga Agar was involved in the suspicious death of a Kazakh journalism student, Yeldana Kaharman, who had interviewed him and that her death was covered up as suicide following an alleged rape. The legislator rejects the accusation.

In continued allegations against the Agar family, the mob leader said Mehmet Agar was behind a series of political killings in the 1990s. Mehmet Agar had also, Peker claimed, illegally appropriated the marina in the upscale Aegean resort of Yalikavak from an Azerbaijani-Turkish businessman. Agar claimed that he had saved the marina from falling into the hands of crime gangs.

Peker’s revelations have raised concerns over possible continued ties between state officials and illegal gangs. To many, they come has a grim reminder of the 1990s when Turkey was rocked by a scandal that was triggered by a car crash. The road accident in western Turkey killed a police chief and a wanted mafia hitman, and injured a member of Turkey’s parliament — all riding in the same car — and revealed shady links between state actors and the underworld.

Peker is believed to have fled Turkey last year after getting wind of an operation against his group.

It is unclear why the mafia boss — who has supported Erdogan by organizing political rallies in his favor and by making threats against his opponents — has turned against the government.

Peker maintains that he was forced to speak out after his wife and two daughters were allegedly mistreated during a police raid on their home.



Rubio Suggests the US Will Drop Ukraine-Russia Peace Efforts if No Progress Within Days

FILED - 18 February 2025, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends the American-Russian talks on Ukraine war in Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. Photo: Freddie Everett/US Department of State/dpa
FILED - 18 February 2025, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends the American-Russian talks on Ukraine war in Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. Photo: Freddie Everett/US Department of State/dpa
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Rubio Suggests the US Will Drop Ukraine-Russia Peace Efforts if No Progress Within Days

FILED - 18 February 2025, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends the American-Russian talks on Ukraine war in Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. Photo: Freddie Everett/US Department of State/dpa
FILED - 18 February 2025, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends the American-Russian talks on Ukraine war in Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. Photo: Freddie Everett/US Department of State/dpa

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the US may be ready to “move on” from efforts for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is not progress in the coming days.
Speaking in Paris after a marathon day of landmark talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials, Rubio said the discussions had been constructive and produced an outline for steps toward peace, The Associated Press said.
French officials said a new meeting in the same format is expected in London in the coming days. Rubio said he could join that meeting, and it’s expected early in the week.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters upon departure.
After weeks of efforts by the Trump administration to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have failed to bring an end to the fighting, Rubio said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks.”
France hosted high-level talks Thursday to discuss Ukraine and its security, the first time since President Donald Trump’s inauguration that top American, Ukrainian and European officials are known to have met together to discuss an end to the war. The meetings came as European concerns grow about Trump’s readiness to draw closer to Russia.
Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff have helped lead US efforts to seek peace. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia. Witkoff has met three times with Putin, Rubio said.
Moscow has effectively refused to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine’s mobilization efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia kept up a series of deadly strikes on Ukrainian cities, according to officials there, wounding scores of civilians days after missiles killed at least 34 during Palm Sunday celebrations in the northern city of Sumy.
One person died and over 60 others were hurt as Russia hit Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, early in the day, Ukraine's Emergency Service reported. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said cluster munitions struck a “densely populated” neighborhood four times.
Russian drones also targeted a bakery in Sumy, less than a week after the deadly Palm Sunday strike there, killing a customer and wounding an employee, the regional prosecutor's office said. Photos released by the agency showed rows of Easter cakes stacked inside a devastated building, covered in thick dust, as a huge hole gaped in the wall behind them and rubble piled up on the floor.
Last Sunday's strike on Sumy, resulting in mass casualties, was the second large-scale missile attack to claim civilian lives in just over a week. Some 20 people, including nine children, died on April 4 as missiles struck Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.
On Thursday, a Russian drone strike killed three civilians and wounded dozens more in Dnipro, a city in southeastern Ukraine, local authorities said. The attack came as a Ukrainian delegation sought security pledges from European powers during a high-level meeting in Paris that was joined by Rubio and Witkoff.
Regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said one child died and five others were wounded in the Dnipro strike.