Istanbul - Talks between Turkish officials and Dogan Yayin, Turkey's largest media group, have failed to yield a settlement over a 4.8 billion lira (3.2 billion dollar) tax fine, the group announced Wednesday. "There has been no settlement reached by Dogan Yayin or its units with the Finance Ministry's tax authority. As we have previously said ... we will continue with the legal process against the tax fine in the case that no settlement is reached," Dogan Yayin said in a statement.
Turkey's tax authority in September hit Dogan with a 2.5-billion-dollar fine, accusing it of hiding income generated through the sales of stock between businesses within the group.
This fine comes on top of a 500-million-dollar fine issued in February over what authorities claim were irregularities in the sale of parts of the group to the German media group Axel Springer.
Axel Springer announced last week it would buy a 29 per cent stake in Dogan Yayin, pending the resolution of the tax case.
Dogan publishes several powerful newspapers and owns CNN-Turk, the Turkish-language version of CNN, among other channels. Its media properties have been among the most vocal critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Relations between the government and the media group turned especially sour after some of the Dogan publications earlier this year aggressively reported on the financial misdeeds committed by the German branch of a Turkish Islamic charity with close ties to the AKP leadership.
At one point, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan even called for his supporters to boycott the group's publications.
Government officials have insisted that the case is not political, but the size of the fine has raised concern both inside and outside Turkey.
"When the sanction is of such magnitude that it threatens the very existence of an entire press group, like in this case, then freedom of the press is at stake," an EU spokesperson said in Brussels soon after the fine was issued.
