Did Erdogan scold Zaev because of Sedat Peker?
Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, accompanied by Minister of Health Venko Filipce, met Saturday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, with the main news being that Turkey will donate 30,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine to Macedonia. Nothing too surprising, given the historically good cooperation and support that Turkey has given and continues to give to our country. However, Zaevs visit to Istanbul has several interesting aspects, especially in the context of the time and the way it happened. The trip to Turkey came quite suddenly, ie it was not announced in advance, something that the government is diligently trying to do with every opportunity to obtain vaccine donations to the country, which are announced several times and quite bombastically long in advance. Additionally, the amount of vaccines the country will receive from Turkey (with due respect and gratitude for the Turkish donation and generosity) is not such grand to require a trip to Istanbul to be announced. Especially since the practice showed that ten times bigger donations were announced at simple press conferences in Skopje. However, Zaevs trip to Istanbul comes just days after Turkish mobster Sedat Peker posted a series of videos on YouTube in which he spoke out against prominent politicians from the ruling party, claiming to be involved in murder, rape, drug trafficking, abuse of power and many other criminal activities. With such publications, Peker shook the political stage in Turkey and attacked the government of Erdogan and his associates, given that his statements were the main news in the Turkish media for several days afterwards.