A huge blast rocks central Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar, on September 6, 2012.[/caption]
Kilim [Kih-LIM] n.
1. A weaving technique common in Turkey, the Caucasus and parts of Central Asia whereby a fabric, usually wool, is woven into a framework of perpendicular threads tied into a loom to create a flat, pileless effect.
2. A fabric made using the technique described in 1. Depending on its thickness it can be used as a floor covering or a hanging, as saddle-bagging, to wrap food or dead bodies, or even as clothing.
3. A typical product of nomadic tribes that used to live in the mountains around Afyon, a western Turkish town where 25 soldiers - most of them conscripts - died on 5 September in an explosion at an army munitions dump. A small example of one (probably suitable as a small rug or wall-hanging [cf. 2]) was offered by the local governor - the most senior state official in the region - to the Chief of Staff on the occasion of his visit to Afyon to investigate the blast. A photograph of the two men holding the brownish, apparently factory-made product was then put on the governor's official website. "We offer products like Turkish delight and spicy sausage to popular people as a means of promoting [Afyon] and offering economic benefit to local people", the governor told journalists afterwards. 'A popular figure like the Chief of Staff came. We gave a present with no material value. The Chief of Staff has a wide circle. If he puts that kilim somewhere, and somebody asks, "Where did you get that', and comes to Afyon to buy one, then poor people will benefit... Was he supposed to say no? Life goes on. Are we supposed to stop doing this because we feel grief?" Later, the Chief of Staff said he had taken the kilim so as not to appear impolite. In return, he had offered a plaque. The photograph of the kilim-giving ceremony was later removed from the governor's website and replaced with a photograph of him meeting politicians from the government and a small religious nationalist party. The Chief of Staff, meanwhile, asked by reporters to comment on the munitions blast, replied, "I will not talk. I will not say anything. Everything is clear."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan later defended his officials in a televised speech. "The issue goes beyond being an issue of Afyon... and turns into a lynch campaign", he said. "This is irresponsible and malignant, to put it mildly.... While these [critics of the officials] are sitting in front of their televisions on the Bosphorus, sipping their alcoholic drinks and eating nibbles, there the governor, the district governor, the soldiers... are putting their lives on the line."
