Erdogan claims victory in Turkey elections

Financial Times reports that “Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory on Sunday night in pivotal presidential and parliamentary elections, securing five more years in office and triggering a change to a powerful presidential system that places unprecedented powers in his hands.”

The official Anadolu Agency reported that, with 99% of votes counted, Erdoğan had won a 52.54% share of the national vote, while the opposition CHP party’s candidate, Muharrem İnce, was on 30.68%.

The Guardian writes, that “huge crowds gathered to celebrate Erdoğan’s victory and hear his speech from the party headquarters in Ankara.”

As the periodical informs, during the address, he spoke of his commitment to “fight terroristic organizations”, “to continue the fight to make the Syrian grounds freer” and to increase the “international prestige” of Turkey. “Our flag will flutter more freely, the peace of every citizen will be advanced,” he said, before leading the crowd in a chant of “One nation, one flag, one country, one state”.

Erdoğan said the Turkish people had voted in favour of democracy, “rights and freedoms”, “growth, development, enrichment in all fields”, and “becoming an honourable and strong country in the world.”

Mass protests shake Iran

According to CNN, “a series of largely economic protests have unsettled Iran's capital Tehran, mostly focused around traders in the Grand Bazaar and their fury over the collapse of the country's currency in recent months.” As it is known, it took 42,000 rials to buy one US dollar at the end of last year, but it now requires 90,000.

The Times of Israel writes that “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sought to calm growing discontent at the tanking economy, assuring the public the country would be able to withstand the new sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump in the wake of the American exit from the Iran nuclear deal earlier this year.” He also accused Washington of waging a “psychological, economic and political war” on Iran.

According to the periodical, “protests in Tehran and around the country — including economically hard-hit cities like Kermanshah in western Iran — included shouts of “Death to Palestine,” “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon” and “Leave Syria and think of us.” Chants of “We don’t want the ayatollahs” and “Death to the dictator” were also heard at some rallies.

Prepared by Marina Muradyan