ANKARA // After his new presidential palace in Ankara was ridiculed by opponents, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing new claims of wasteful extravagance.
But this time the controversy does not surround the US$615 million (Dh2.3bn) building with 1,150 rooms, but a circular table used for iftars.
The table, which appears to be the size of a squash court, is so vast as to make it impossible to have a conversation with the person at the other end.
The Ankara Architects’ Chamber – a frequent critic of Mr Erdogan over the palace – gave an itemised valuation of the table itself, as well as accompanying chairs and ornaments, saying they were worth one million lira (Dh1.4m) in total.
The presidency however rubbished the suggestion, saying it was “black propaganda”.
“All these figures, stated per item, are wrong and a lie, all these claims are merely slander,” Mr Erdogan said on Wednesday.
“We know their intentions and a full account will be given before the law,” he added.
The controversy erupted on Monday when the presidency published pictures of Mr Erdogan and two dozen religious figures and scholars seated around the piece of furniture for iftar.
Seated at the head of the table, the president was only vaguely discernable from the other end.
Similar images emerged after another iftar was held on Wednesday evening with municipal chiefs, setting social media ablaze with suggestions over what to put in the vast empty space in the table’s middle.
Some suggested a vast pizza, others that there was ample space for a traditional oil-wrestling match.
The presidency then took the unusual step of issuing a one minute time-lapse video showing that officials at the palace assembled the table out of several smaller ones with a round table at the centre.
It then showed the white-jacketed palace officials sweeping the table clear and adding a vast table cloth and cutlery.
Mr Erdogan said the tables used for the giant table were merely heirlooms from the 1993-2000 presidency of Suleyman Demirel, who died earlier this month.
The chairs, meanwhile, were purchased under his predecessor Abdullah Gul.
* Agence France-Presse
