Upon a question about the removal of Turkey’s Wealth Fund Chairman Mehmet Bostan from his post, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday that the Wealth Fund needs to be reorganized.
Erdoğan’s remarks came during a press conference ahead of a visit to Kazakhstan at İstanbul Atatürk Airport’s government guesthouse.
Claiming that the operation of the Wealth Fund had not worked out as expected, Erdoğan said he discussed the issue with Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and that they decided it could not continue as is.
“The prime minister and I have observed the developments. We decided it could not go on that way. As an outcome of this decision we said, ‘This is the right thing to do.’ The prime minister also took a step regarding this … because we need to reorganize the Wealth Fund.”
According to a Bloomberg news article on Thursday, Erdoğan and his allies created the wealth fund to protect $200 billion of assets following a botched coup attempt last summer but it created division between Erdoğan and Yıldırım, who wanted to replace Bostan since he was backed by the president.
The article claimed that there were concerns about the fund being used for political interests and prioritizing the gain of certain companies.