THE WEEKEND HEADLINES OUT OF TURKEY SHOUTED: Turkey says over 800 detained in anti-ISIL operations.. But the real story is that “Turkey Plans Massive Transfer of Assets to State Wealth Fund.”

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“The move is likely to increase political control over the companies,” said Wolfango Piccoli, co-president at Teneo Intelligence. “The government is currently struggling to finance a series of high-profile infrastructure projects; Erdogan hopes these will boost his domestic prestige and enable him to consolidate his grip on power through the introduction of an executive presidential system with almost no checks or balances.”

Appointments to the board include Yigit Bulut, a senior presidential adviser; Himmet Karadag, Borsa Istanbul Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Kerem Alkin and Oral Erdogan, who are both academics, according to the country’s trade registry.

“Turkey’s most valuable state assets are being given to a specially authorized and unsupervised company,” said Cetin Osman Budak, a lawmaker and deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party. “This is not a step for the benefit of the public.”

Erdogan is setting himself up as Turkey’s biggest (and final) arbiter of graft, which ought to keep in him power for a very long time.