just back from IST
had a great weekend - despite the President closing all the roads in the centre and around his Dolmabahce Palace as he was hosting a summit on jerusalem there with much of the arabs hobnobs - almost 3 hours it took in traffic from the airport to my hotel which was near the Palace - 2 big warships were anchored off in the Bosphorus across from the Palace during the summit Fri and Sat
my pal is a top wealthy businessman there with a factory employing 300 in superb conditions - they have a pool and a gym for the staff
he is very worried by what's going on - very worried indeed, as are all the middle and upper classes who want to live and work in a normal very westernised secuallar civilized existence with a normal society as they have been really since Ataturk
go to any cafe in IST or a restaurant and you could be in Barcelona New York or London
it seems Erdogan is popular with the ''people'' but is power grabbing in a rather alarming way as noted above
My pal is so worried he wants to sell up and get out as do many of his friends