Anger boils over as Turkey has no airplanes to fight wildfires while Erdoğan has more than a dozen
Turkey’s minister of agriculture has said the government doesn’t have proper aircraft to combat wildfires that have been ravaging the country since Wednesday, prompting outrage among the public and the opposition to compare the lack of firefighting aircraft with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 13-airplane presidential fleet.
More than 70 wildfires have broken out this week in provinces on Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts as well as inland areas, Erdoğan said, adding that 14 were still burning. The death toll has risen to four with more than 180 injured as thousands of firefighters battled huge blazes spreading across the Mediterranean resort regions for a third day on Friday.
Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli told reporters during a visit to the affected region that Turkey does not have a firefighting plane in its inventory.
Planes from Russia and Ukraine helped battle the flames, and another from Azerbaijan was joining them. “As of midday, with the arrival of the planes, we are turning in a positive direction,” Erdoğan told reporters after Friday prayers.
However, the admission that the country had no firefighting planes has put Erdoğan’s government under immense pressure.
“While the palace [the presidency] has 13 planes and the agriculture minister travels everywhere in his jet, the government can’t employ a firefighting plane to put out these fires, demonstrating the terrible situation this administration has put us in. One palace plane could have bought dozens of firefighting planes,” pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) spokesperson Ebru Günay said on Friday.
Erdoğan, his family and the government are frequently criticized for waste taxpayer money on luxury and mismanaging Turkey’s resources. He raised eyebrows in 2018 when Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani gave him a specially equipped Boeing 747-8.
Turkish media outlets reported back then that the airplane, which was originally to be sold on the secondary market at a price of $400 million, landed at İstanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport to join Turkey’s presidential fleet.
Turkish ministers also sparked controversy with their use of jets when three ministers traveled to the country’s flood-stricken northeast aboard three planes, drawing backlash from critics who accused the government of squandering public funds.
Mürsel Alban, an MP from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), called on Erdoğan to resign, decrying the damage caused by the wildfires.
“I am addressing the Erdoğan government. ‘You don’t cut corners when it comes to prestige,’ you keep saying. You have a 300-room palace in Marmaris [a Turkish resort town], but you don’t have a plane to put out the fire in Marmaris. That is how [great] your prestige is,” Alban said.
Turks in the coastal city of Manavgat booed Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu when he made a visit to the region. Locals protested Çavuşoğlu after he said three firefighting planes were involved in the effort to extinguish the fires, lambasting government officials for their incompetence in fighting the disaster.
Çavuşoğlu said the Antalya Governor’s Office would launch a national donation drive to help people in southern Antalya province, where wildfires ongoing since Wednesday have claimed the lives of three people and injured more than 100.
“Those who want to donate in cash can contact our governor’s office. Our people are generous. They always do their best to provide the necessary support,” he said.
“Go ask for money from your president who keeps building palaces,” Workers Party of Turkey (TİP) MP Barış Atay tweeted and added, “Go and fund [the effort] with the money you will use for the canal [Istanbul] that you will build for billions of dollars.”
Erdoğan is famous for his love of lavish presidential facilities. His presidential complex in Ankara was at the center of criticism when it was constructed due to its large budget, expensive interiors, more than a thousand rooms and luxurious design as well as the felling of trees in its neighborhood.
Over TL 1.7 billion ($244 million at the time) had been spent on the palace, twice the original estimate, when Erdoğan moved into the palace in November 2014.
Earlier this month, photos emerged showing his summer home in a resort town.
Şefik Birkiye, the architect who designed Erdoğan’s mansion in Marmaris, detailed the interior and exterior of the complex, nearly three years after its completion. The home reportedly cost 640 million lira ($73 million) at a time of increased poverty among Turks.
AKP gov’t blamed for poor response to forest fires raging across Turkey
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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has attracted widespread criticism for its poor handling of major wildfires in western and southern provinces that have so far claimed the lives of four people and injured more than 180 while also taking a toll on wildlife and farm animals.
Fifty-seven fires out of a total of 71 that erupted in 21 provinces since around noon on Wednesday have been brought under control, with cooling efforts underway, while the remaining 14 are continuing to burn, according to the latest statement from Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli.
The harsh criticism targeting Turkish authorities centered around Erdoğan’s inaction and the small number of firefighting planes actively used to respond to fires. According to local media reports, Turkey had only one plane available to respond to the fires so leased two more from Russia for TL 1.3 million ($154,563) per day.
The Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK), a non-profit organization whose planes had been used in firefighting for decades, has been unable to participate in tenders for leasing firefighting aircraft in the last two years due to tender specifications, Turkish media reports said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry stipulates in the tenders that the minimum capacity of the aircraft should be 5,000 liters while THK planes have 4,900-liter tanks.
“Turkey is on fire… The president is nowhere to be found. Where is he, on vacation? Why doesn’t he ask the world for help? Why doesn’t he facilitate the use of THK planes? Are they waiting for the whole country to be burned to ashes?” Yıldırım Kaya, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), tweeted on Friday.
While many social media users slammed Erdoğan for not visiting the regions affected by the fires, the presidency only released a statement late Thursday, saying Erdoğan was in contact with Pakdemirli, Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who are on the scene, and that he wished God’s mercy on those who died in the fires.
Videos circulating on social media also showed Çavuşoğlu being booed by a crowd in the early hours of Friday in Antalya’s Manavgat district, one of the regions most severely affected by the wildfires.
In the videos, a person is heard asking the minister, “Doesn’t the government have any planes to send here?” to which Çavuşoğlu replies, “We have three and all of them were here today. One left the region later on.” The person then says, “Does the Turkish Republic only have three firefighting planes? There are currently 10 sitting idle in the THK hangar.”
Local media also reported on Friday that Muğla Mayor Osman Gürün had called THK on Thursday with the aim of leasing firefighting planes but couldn’t reach anybody in charge. Gürün was told by the operator that all the officials had left at around 3:30 p.m. and that he could talk to them the next morning, according to the reports.
Turkish media reports also said Turkey’s former Customs and Commerce Minister Cenap Aşçı, who was appointed chairman of the board of THK in 2019, drew criticism on social media after he admitted during a TV program late on Thursday to have attended a wedding ceremony while massive forest fires were raging across the country.
Pakdemirli on Friday said in a press statement that the ministry has never had firefighting planes or helicopters in its inventory and that they have started working on procuring planes from THK for the inventory, on the orders of the president.
Wildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the arid summer months, although some forest fires have been blamed on arson.
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