Turkey is set to allocate 36 billion liras to the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), country’s top religious body for the next year, according to the proposal of the 2023 Central Government Budget Law.
More than doubling the previous year’s figures, the directorate will dwarf the budgets of six key ministries, Diken news website reported on Tuesday.
The surpass will include the Interior Ministry that includes the budget of the country’s police force.
Directorate of Religious Affairs’ budget share will increase to 43 billion liras in 2024 and to almost 50 billion in 2025, according to Diken.
The budget of the official institution regulating the role of Islam in Turkey has grown more than 65 times since Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. In 2002, the directorate’s budget was slated as 550 billion liras. AKP allocated 3,9 billion liras to the institution in 2012 and 16 billion liras in 2022, according to official figures.
Erdogan and his ruling party were blamed for trying to force Islamic values on the secular nation. Since 2002, the AKP has pursued a policy of elevating the role of Islam in Turkey by building thousands of new mosques and Islamic schools. AKP’s exponentially increasing the Directorate of Religious Affairs’ budget in 20 years of its governance, sparked criticism that the country’s top religious body is used by Erdogan as a tool of soft power.
The directorate’s 2023 budget will also lag behind the budget of the presidency and the parliament, Diken said.
While AKP allocates 35.9 billion to the religious body for 2023, the budget slated for the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) was 14 billion liras, it said.
The General Directorate of State Opera and Ballet and the General Directorate of State Theaters were also allocated around 1.1 billion liras for the next year.
Turkey, a country that targets to go to the moon, allocated only 1.6 billion liras to the Turkish Space Agency, Diken added.
Erdogan last year announced plans to send a rocket to the moon by the end of 2023.
While the Directorate of Religious Affairs employs 209,156 people, only 151 people work for the Turkish Space Agency, Diken said.
Source:gerceknews
