CHP spokesperson slams minister over terror accusations

ANKARA

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesperson Selin Sayek Böke has slammed Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu for accusing CHP lawmakers of supporting terror, describing his comments as “an example of great irresponsibility.”

“Those who have inflicted three different terrorist organizations on Turkey have no right to associate the CHP with terrorism,” Böke said after her party’s central executive board meeting on Feb. 27.

“The interior minister gave an incredible example of irresponsibility. If people currently trying to carrying out the ‘no’ referendum campaign under state of emergency conditions are under threat of attack, the reason is the atmosphere [the government] has created,” she added, referring to campaigning ahead of the referendum on shifting Turkey to an executive presidential system.

Her comments came after Soylu criticized CHP Istanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu for arguing against the ongoing military operations in the Koruköy district of the southeastern province of Mardin.

Tanrıkulu shared a picture of an elderly man said to have been injured in the operation on his official Twitter account, demanding to know the authenticity of the picture.

Soylu stated that the ongoing operation is within the legal limits of the fight against terror, slamming Tanrıkulu and the CHP for “abetting terrorism.”

“Here I have a call to Kılıçdaroğlu. It is very clear: Do not allow these PKK sympathizers in your party. This nation asks you to account for it,” Soylu said on Feb. 26.

Böke responded angrily to Soylu’s comments a day later.

“The main duty of an interior minister is not to ask an account for terror trouble but to give an account for it; not to blame lawmakers but to protect them,” she said.

‘One-man regime’

Stating that the new system heralded by the constitutional amendment will pave the way for “unpredictability and instability” in politics, the economy, and society, Böke underlined the CHP’s opposition to the charter.

“The ‘palace regime’ we have experienced in Turkey for the last three years has shown us that the ‘one-man regime’ brings instability,” she said.

“In a system where 50 percent [of the public] are excluded [by denouncing them as terrorists], there will be polarization, denial and discrimination,” Böke added.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s meeting with Karamollaoğlu

Responding to criticism of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for attending a commemoration of the former Islamist Felicity Party (SP) leader Necmettin Erbakan, Böke said the CHP aims to “sit at one table with those who are different from us.”

“We are longing for a Turkey where 80 million people are talking to each other,” she said.

Speaking at the commemoration, Kılıçdaroğlu drew criticism from some opposition voices for accepting a plaque from current SP leader Temel Karamollaoğlu. Karamollaoğlu was the Sivas mayor at the time of the Sivas Massacre, an arson attack on mostly Alevi intellectuals inside the Madımak Hotel staged by radical Islamists that killed 33 intellectuals and two hotel personnel in July 1993.