On May 23, fellow Al-Monitor writer Kadri Gursel had a nice piece crowned by a provocative headline: “AKP Wages Jihad Against Alcohol in Turkey.” The rest of the piece did not mention the j-word again, nor did it explain how it exactly fit the issue, but the title was enough to give an impression that Turkey's ruling party was leading an explicitly Islamic campaign against alcohol.
However, none other than the AKP leadership itself has explicitly denied that this was the case. Bulent Arinc, vice prime minister and second after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan within the AKP hierarchy, spoke to the press about the new alcohol regulations of his government, emphasizing: