The emails came from AKP’s primary domain, “akparti.org.tr”, with the most recent emails sent July 6, 2016 and dating as far back as 2010, the leaks website said.
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However, WikiLeaks said that “emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters”.
WikiLeaks said it had verified the material on the database as legitimate.
WikiLeaks’ release of the emails also comes at a tense time for relations between the United States and Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and a potential ally in a fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State to Turkey’s south in Syria.
As the country grapples with the fallout from a failed coup attempt, a senior Turkish official told The Guardian the ban had been imposed on WikiLeaks because the emails constituted stolen or illegally obtained information. WikiLeaks announced its intention some days ago and since then the website underwent several attacks by hackers. “We are unsure of the true origin of the attack”.
WikiLeaks previously claimed that the Turkish government would attempt to censor the distribution of the documents, and urged the Turkish public to be ready to bypass any government attempts at blocking access to the material. “The timing suggests a Turkish state power faction or its allies”, the group wrote in a separate tweet.
Having now recovered, Wikileaks have published the material, ahead of its own schedule, in response to the abortive Turkish coup and the ensuing purges of thousands of military servicepeople, judges, and academics, who have been subjected to mass arrest. “We will prevail & publish”, WikiLeaks said on Twitter.
The action was undertaken by Turkey’s internet watchdog after the whistleblower organization released hundreds of thousands of emails from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.
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WikiLeaks has said in its Twitter feed that it’s been under sustained cyber-attacks since Monday, seemingly an effort to take the site offline or prevent its release.
