{"id":15412,"date":"2018-09-17T17:26:33","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T17:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15412"},"modified":"2018-09-17T17:26:33","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T17:26:33","slug":"erdogan-under-fire-after-400-million-jet-gift-from-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15412","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan under fire after  $400 million jet gift from Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1373471\/middle-east\" readability=\"90\">\n<p>\nLONDON:\u00a0The Turkish opposition have \u2018questioned the honor\u2019 of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after\u00a0 the leader admitted accepting a luxury jumbo jet as a \u201cgift\u201d from Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>\nErdogan has come under intense pressure after it emerged he had received the $400 million jet from Doha.\u00a0 The opposition initially claimed the plane had been bought for the presidency with public funds.<\/p>\n<p>\nOn Monday, Erdogan said Turkey had shown interest in buying the Boeing 747-8 plane but Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani insisted on offering the plane as a gift, AFP reported.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWe were interested. When the Qatar emir was informed of this he gave it as a gift, saying \u2018I won&#8217;t take money from Turkey. I will give this plane as a gift,\u2019\u201d Erdogan said.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Turkish president insisted that while the jet would be used for his trips, \u201cthe plane is not mine, it is the Turkish Republic\u2019s,\u201d he said while returning from a visit to Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n<p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"736\" src=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/%5Byyyy%5D\/%5Bmm%5D\/%5Bdd%5D\/screen_shot_2018-09-17_at_15.29.02.png\" width=\"1000\"><\/p>\n<p>\nBut Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People&#8217;s Party (CHP) hit back at Erdogan over the move to accept such a gift.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cHow can it not cause you discomfort?\u201d Kilicdaroglu said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\nErdogan said that once the paintwork was finished he hoped to use the plane for travel.<\/p>\n<p>\nReports said the giant plane, which was part of Tamim\u2019s personal fleet, is equipped for only 76 passengers and has lounges and boardrooms.<\/p>\n<p>\nErdogan\u2019s remarks came after criticism last week by MPs from the opposition, who claimed Erdogan had bought the plane.<\/p>\n<p>\nCHP MP Gamze Tascier said on Twitter that a sales official from a company based in Switzerland confirmed the sale of a Boeing 747-8 jet. \u201cThe company says it was sold, supporters say it was a gift,\u201d she said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe plane shows the increasingly close relationship between Doha and Ankara, particularly since Saudi Arabia and Arab countries launched a boycott more than a year ago of Qatar over its links to extremist groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nDoha looked to Turkey and Iran in response to ship in food, goods and supplies. Qatar and Turkey also sided with Islamist groups during the Arab Spring protests in country\u2019s like Egypt and Libya.<\/p>\n<p>\nLast month, Doha promised to make a $15 billion direct investment in Turkey after a spat\u00a0 with Washington, which saw the lira\u2019s value fall drastically against the dollar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON:\u00a0The Turkish opposition have \u2018questioned the honor\u2019 of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after\u00a0 the leader admitted accepting a luxury jumbo jet as a \u201cgift\u201d from Qatar. Erdogan has come under intense pressure after it emerged he had received the $400 million jet from Doha.\u00a0 The opposition initially claimed the plane had been bought for the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}