"This was mainly about consolidating his own power and thickening the cement on which his party stands on, " Yavuz Baydar, a columnist for the newspaper Today's Zaman, said in an interview with CNN.
"She took a newspaper that was not the best newspaper in the city at the time and she turned it into this amazing instrument that stands for the best in journalism, " he said.
The newspaper said the incident was "another embarrassment" for the ruling Congress party-led government "which stands exposed for allowing itself to be taken for a ride so easily by a foreign government".