Aydin Dogan, Turkish Media Tycoon, Is Ordered to Appear in Court

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/world/europe/turkey-aydin-dogan-donald-trump.html

Version 0 of 1.

ISTANBUL — Aydin Dogan, the founder of a sprawling business empire that includes several leading Turkish newspapers, was summoned to court on Wednesday in the latest round of a long-running dispute between Mr. Dogan and the Turkish state.

Mr. Dogan, who also owns a pair of towers bearing the Trump name and is one of the Trump family’s main business partners in Turkey, was told to attend a court hearing for a case in which he stands accused of running a fuel-smuggling ring.

The charge was leveled almost a year ago, but this is the first time Mr. Dogan has been ordered to attend court. There was no immediate suggestion that the dispute was connected to Mr. Dogan’s relationship with President Trump.

The order came just a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Mr. Dogan’s flagship newspaper, Hurriyet, of “impudence” for publishing a headline that suggested that there was a disagreement between Mr. Erdogan and the Turkish Army.

“Everyone should know their place,” Mr. Erdogan said in response to the article on Tuesday, leading analysts to wonder if he might seek to punish the newspaper. Mr. Erdogan added, “Whoever tries to play us against ourselves will pay a heavy price.”

“And so they are,” said Amberin Zaman, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington think tank, in an online analysis written shortly after Mr. Dogan’s summons.

A spokesman for Mr. Dogan’s company did not respond to an email requesting comment. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Since the election of Mr. Trump, the Erdogan government has been uncharacteristically mild in its reactions to his perceived Islamophobia. Mr. Erdogan has expressed his hope that the Trump administration will abandon President Barack Obama’s plan to arm Syrian Kurdish militias, which Turkey considers to be an arm of a Turkish terrorist group.

Mr. Dogan’s summons is the latest in a series of disagreements with Mr. Erdogan. Though Mr. Dogan’s newspapers have recently made management changes that were seen as olive branches to Mr. Erdogan, their editorial positions have historically been unfavorable to his government.

In 2009, Mr. Dogan’s media company was fined billions of dollars for tax infractions, which some perceived as retribution for reports published by his newspapers and broadcast by his television channels.

This week’s disagreement stems from the publication of an article that suggested that the army’s leadership was “uncomfortable” with the government, in particular over the recent decision to lift a longstanding policy that prevented women in the military from wearing head scarves.

The subject of military intervention is a particularly sensitive one in Turkey, where the government narrowly defeated an attempted coup last July.