Alevi activists visit Çankaya, deny meeting president

Following a meeting that was off-limits to journalists, Prof. Dr. Izzettin Doğan, the general leader for the Cem Foundation, which supports the interests of Turkey’s Alevi religious minority, which has historically supported Turkey’s secular political parties, denied that members of his organisation had met with Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s new president and a politician with an Islamist past.

“The Cem Foundation has expressed no wish to meet the president, and neither has the president invited a member of the foundation [to visit]…. The Cem Foundation is a serious association, and will make an appointment to see the president if it wishes to do so,” Mr. Doğan told journalists.