{"id":18962,"date":"2010-05-10T15:40:37","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T13:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=18962"},"modified":"2013-10-13T00:11:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T21:11:42","slug":"turkish-opposition-leader-quits-over-a-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/05\/10\/turkish-opposition-leader-quits-over-a-tape\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish opposition leader quits over a tape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The leader of Turkey&#8217;s principal opposition party has resigned following the circulation of a video purporting to show him having an affair.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/newsimg.bbc.co.uk\/media\/images\/47816000\/jpg\/_47816215_47816211.jpg\" alt=\"Turkish opposition leader Deniz Baykal, 6 April 2010\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The video allegedly shows Deniz Baykal, who led the secularist Republican People&#8217;s Party (CHP), in a bedroom with a female CHP politician.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Baykal claimed he was a victim of a government-orchestrated plot.<\/p>\n<p>His party is currently opposing constitutional reforms proposed by the governing AK Party.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Baykal resigned during a news conference on Monday, during which he said such videos could not be aired without the knowledge of the government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not a sex tape, this is a conspiracy,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If this has a price, and that price is the resignation from CHP leadership, I am ready to pay it. My resignation does not mean running away, or giving in.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On the contrary, it means that I&#8217;m fighting it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Both Mr Baykal and the woman allegedly shown in the video are married. In his news conference, Mr Baykal did not confirm or deny any affair.<\/p>\n<p>The secretly-filmed video surfaced on YouTube last week.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation on Friday, banning the dissemination of the tape.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Baykal, 71, had led the CHP since 1992.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/europe\/8672672.stm\">BBC<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The leader of Turkey&#8217;s principal opposition party has resigned following the circulation of a video purporting to show him having an affair. The video allegedly shows Deniz Baykal, who led the secularist Republican People&#8217;s Party (CHP), in a bedroom with a female CHP politician. Mr Baykal claimed he was a victim of a government-orchestrated plot. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,922],"tags":[535,1020,2908,2907],"class_list":["post-18962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","category-world","tag-chp","tag-deniz-baykal","tag-turkeys-principal-opposition","tag-turkish-opposition-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}