Leaked Email Says Turkish PM Erdogan Has Cancer And Just Two Years To Live

Reuters is reporting that Prime Minister has cancer and the prognosis is not good:

A leaked email from security analysis company Stratfor said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had terminal cancer and just two years to live, a claim denied by officials who said Turkey’s most powerful politician was in good health.


Cancer rumors started after Erdogan had surgery on his lower intestine in November but did not gain media prominence until Tuesday when the Taraf newspaper reported the email leak on its front page.

The email, between two colleagues at U.S.-based Stratfor, which provides geopolitical analysis to paying subscribers, was released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks as part of a massive leak of the company’s correspondence.

The email said doctors had removed a 20-cm (8-inch) part of Erdogan’s colon during the first operation on Nov. 26. He had a second procedure last month.

“The prognosis is not looking good, though. The surgeon said they were estimating 2 years for him,” said a copy of the Dec. 10 email accessed on the Internet.

The report was based on intelligence from a source identified as Faruk Demir who obtained the information from an “old classmate friend” of the lead surgeon who operated on Erdogan.

Considering that Erdogan is behind the Islamist shift in Turkey, and has done his best to sabotage ties with Israel--one might think that the removal of Erdogan from the world stage would be a good thing.

Maybe not.

Besides the internal factionalism within Turkey that would likely result, Turkish pressure on Syria and Turkey's acting as a counterweight to Iran would be diminished.

All we can do is wait to see if the denials of Erdogan's cancer prognosis are true.

Hat tip: Challah Hu Akbar

Technorati Tag: Turkey and Erdogan.