8 March 2016 / By NEOLine/GK. Published by NewEurope

Editor-in-chief of Zaman Almanya (Zaman Germany), Sueleyman Bag, made clear that the Turkish opposition daily will still be published, even though it was taken over by the Turkish government in Turkey.

Bag told Reuters on Monday: “As of today we are printing a version of Zaman (in Germany) that has nothing to do with Zaman there (in Turkey) because it has been forcibly taken over by the state… We will print an independent newspaper.”

The Turkish Zaman Daily, was a top-selling newspaper which supported the Gülen movement being led by the Turkish Islamic scholar and preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999.

According to the Turkish daily, Hurriyet, the Islamic scholar used to be a close ally of the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and it is reported that he helped the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to come into power. However, later on the AKP has accused Gülen of forming and heading a terrorist organization to topple the Turkish government.

The Turkish authorities have launched a series of operation against the movement, and on 4 March, they seized control of Zaman in another operation against Gülen network in Turkey. According to reports, the police used teargas and water cannon against hundreds of protesters who were outside the Zaman offices. Zaman’s management was then dismissed and the Zaman daily newspaper is now taking a pro-government line that “borders on caricature,” Reporters without Borders said in a press release.

According to Euronews, on Monday, Bag held up the last joint edition of the paper with the Turkish version in Istanbul and said “What you are seeing here is the last joint edition with the Turkish Zaman editorial team. As of Sunday, or rather as of today, we are publishing a Zaman issue which is no longer in cooperation with Zaman in Turkey…This is the edition our subscribers in Germany receive. In Germany, we have 14,300 subscribers to the print version.”