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US State Department Director Douglas Hengel, Office of Southeastern European Affairs gave a briefing on his recent trip to Turkey and his observations of the Turkish elections held on November 3rd. While Hengel would not speculate on the future of the new Turkish government, he and the State Department await the formation of the new government and look forward to working closely and constructively with the Justice and Development Party (AKP.) The AKP is currently preparing to form a new government that will be headed by someone other than its leader, Tayyip Erdogan, who was banned from running for the Turkish Grand National Assembly and can not therefore become prime minister. The AKP has been long called an Islamic party, but it would be wrong to categorize the AKP as such.
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