Turkey’s main opposition leader indirectly demands resignation of FM Davutoğlu

ANKARA

Davutoğlu arrived in Ankara in the early morning of June 12, cutting short a visit to New York. AA Photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu asked Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on June 12 to “resign” from his post due to his foreign policy, which he says has isolated Turkey in the international arena.

“Kılıçdaroğlu stated that the Justice and Development Party’s [AKP] Middle East policy has been entirely wrong and has dragged the country into a quagmire, isolating the country in the region; thus, Turkey faces serious problems,” CHP Deputy Chair Faruk Loğoğlu told reporters after a meeting between Kılıçdaroğlu and Davutoğlu.

“He told Davutoğlu that this needs to have a political cost,” added Loğoğlu, who himself was a former senior diplomat who served as a Foreign Ministry undersecretary in the early 2000s.

The meeting was hastily initiated by Davutoğlu, as part of a tour of opposition leaders, in which he informed them of the details and efforts concerning the recent kidnapping Turkish citizens in the Iraqi city of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The government had been set to brief opposition parties about the situation during a General Assembly meeting at Parliament on June 12. However, the meeting was postponed, with Davutoğlu instead asking for appointments with opposition party leaders in order to inform them in person of the situation.

His first meeting with opposition leaders was with Kılıçdaroğlu, after he arrived in Ankara in the early morning of June 12, cutting short a visit to New York where he had been set to attend meetings at the U.N.

In response to questions about whether Kılıçdaroğlu had asked Davutoğlu to “resign,” Loğoğlu simply said they “spoke about a ‘political cost’” and recalled how he has repeatedly called for Davutoğlu’s resignation in the past.

“The chief architect of such foreign policies is the prime minister. But Davutoğlu is the architect in practice,” Loğoğlu added.