MHP leader to visit quake-hit zone
ANKARA
Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) said he will soon visit all 10 provinces severely hit by the devastating earthquakes while commending the state and the government’s response to the disaster as perfect.
“I followed the developments from Ankara as the president was already in the earthquake-hit region. Our friends at the party were in the field right after the earthquake and delivered aid to all the villages and districts. Unlike others, we are not showing off,” Bahçeli said in his address to his parliamentary group on Feb. 14.
There were criticisms against Bahçeli for not visiting the area, although he is originally from Osmaniye, one of the earthquake-hit provinces in southern Anatolia.
“I will visit Osmaniye, Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep, Kilis, Adana and Malatya one by one and will be one voice with my people,” he said, stressing he will do so without harming the ongoing rescue and relief works. “I am not going to take those who ask where the MHP is. We are everywhere.”
Stressing the state performed well in responding the aftermath of the earthquake although there were some minor shortcomings, Bahçeli said, “Those who claim that the state was not there [to hell] are collaborators, miserable.”
The MHP leader claimed these works were done perfectly and advised the people to direct their assistance to the state institutions, like the AFAD, the emergency management agency, and not to the civil society organizations.
