“Where’s the $128 billion?”.. The story of a sign running from the streets of Turkey to the headquarters of the Parliament
“Posters and banners of lost money from the Turkish Central Bank’s treasury, estimated at $128 billion, have continued to evaporate in just 8 months.”
Mahmoud Tonal, the Istanbul deputy of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the largest opposition party, hung a large banner with the words “Where is the $128 billion? “At the parliament in Ankara.
According to the website of the Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, the move came after Turkish security forces removed similar posters and banners that the opposition party had published on the streets in a number of Turkish cities and states; to demand to know the fate of the $128 billion missing from the central bank’s foreign reserves.
This move will no doubt arouse the ire of the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, especially since he did not bear these posters in the streets, how can he bear them on the seat of parliament.
The posters, published by the opposition party in a number of Turkish cities to inquire about the fate of the missing amount of the Turkish reserve stock, caused a major security alert, as they were immediately removed by the police.
On Tuesday, the Turkish parliament, with the votes of the “Public” Alliance, rejected the ruling, questioning the CHP about the fate of the money.
On Tuesday night, Turkish forces raided the Republican People’s Party headquarters in a number of cities to remove the posters, prompting Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the party’s president and opposition leader, to express his disapproval of the “exaggerated” security response to the campaign, in a tweet on Wednesday.
Kılıçdaroğlu tweeted that there were night raids carried out by special forces teams on the headquarters of the opposition party in a number of cities; To remove posters that read “Where is the $128 billion?”.
In the tweet, in which he referred to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s account, the opposition leader criticized special forces for raiding his party headquarters during the Suhoor to remove the posters.
“For what are those posters removed ?. “We ask you about the fate of the money of the poor and orphans, because the throne of the merciful is shaking when orphans cry”.
The party’s Istanbul branch chief, Kılıçdaroğlu, confirmed that the party had once again put up posters in the streets.
The Central Bank of Turkey spent huge amounts of money in foreign currency over the past two years while Barat Albayrak, the president’s son-in-law, was the treasury and finance minister, supporting the local currency after the Turkish lira lost much of its value against foreign currencies and inflation rose dramatically.
Former Turkish Central Bank President Durman Yilmaz and former Vice President Ibrahim Turhan have called for an investigation into the fate of $128 billion spent from the Treasury without disclosing its disbursements and the exchange rate applied during sales.
The Turkish opposition, especially the CHP, had been following the Erdoğan regime for months to determine the fate of these funds, which evaporated in just 8 months. In response to repeated questions about the fate of the money, Erdogan said that he had used it to counter the repercussions of the coronavirus.
According to the Bloomberg Health Agency, Turkey’s net central bank reserves have dropped to their lowest level since 2003, at $10.68 billion after deducting barter agreements with other countries’ central banks.
The Agency calculated the net foreign currency reserves of the Turkish Central Bank in light of the data for the week ending April 2 published by the Central Bank last Thursday, indicating that the net foreign exchange reserves reached $10.7 billion
