Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

About USD 615 M have been earmarked so far on the construction of Ak Saray, Turkey's impressive presidential palace, the country's Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced.

Out of the total, some USD 432 M has already been spent on building Ak Saray, while another USD 135 M is allocated for 2015, Hürriyet Daily News quoted Şimşek as telling Parliament's budget committee on Tuesday.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has retracted his claim that Ak Saray, the new presidential palace, was unlicensed, but vowed to donate the facility to the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), the prestigious school in the capital city of Ankara, if the CHP comes to power.

Washington has dismissed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s remarks suggesting there is a “cacophony” of different views among the United States authorities.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she did not agree with Erdoğan’s complaint, suggesting that the differences in responses could be “due to the differences in questions.”

The cost of Turkey’s controversial new presidential palace, which has been heavily criticized by the opposition for overspending, currently stands at 1.37 billion Turkish Liras ($615 million), surpassing earlier estimates, according to fresh data provided by Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek.

The Turkish government is set to send a motion to Parliament on the deployment of troops to the Central African Republic as part of an EU peacekeeping force, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has announced.

“The sending of a motion to Parliament has been decided by our Prime Ministry,” Arınç told reporters late Nov. 3, speaking after a Cabinet meeting.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he has not apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, contradicting a previous White House statement that claimed he did.

Instead, Biden said he told Erdoğan that his alleged accusation that Turkey helped to fuel the growth of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was misreported.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has summoned German Ambassador to Turkey Eberhard Pohl over a cartoon in German school textbooks that it said “insults President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Turkish community in Germany.”

Turkey is to revive plans to privatize two bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, along with a number of motorways, and aims to start the process by the first quarter of 2015, banking and government sources said on Nov. 3.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the international media of waging a “psychological war” against Turkey, also slamming local media outlets for collaborating in this campaign.

“Each day, some international newspapers come up and conduct a perception operation,” Erdoğan said during a speech at Istanbul’s Bezmialem University on Nov. 3.

Although Turkey’s view of the battle over the Syrian border town of Kobane is extremely clear, it is not possible to say the same for U.S. officials in Washington, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has maintained, as he portrayed the U.S. capital city in cacophony of contradicting statements on Kobane.