Opposition to wait for PM to make comment

ANKARA

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will remain silent until the prime minister speaks on a cease-fire call by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) leader on Nevruz.

CHP deputy leader Gürsel Tekin said the party members would not comment on the issue before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“I am waiting for Mr. Erdoğan and the government members to say what they think,” Tekin told reporters yesterday. “Our addresse is the government. We won’t speak until they say something.”

Meanwhile, the absence of a Turkish flag at Nevruz celebrations in Diyarbakır has elicited fury among opposition deputies.

During a General Assembly meeting, all MPs of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) put Turkish flags on their desks, while some also put the photographs of some soldiers killed by the PKK. MHP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Mehmet Şandır told reporters that the Turkish flag was insulted in Diyarbakır.

“There, the Turkish nation and the state have been challenged. We flew the flag at the General Assembly in a show of a rebellion against this,” Şandır said. CHP deputy Kamer Genç also criticized the situation, suggesting: “Today is the day when Turkey is divided. It is the day when Turkey’s sovereignty rights ended.”

Interior Minister Muammer Güler condemned “with hatred that there was not a Turkish flag,” adding the judiciary would do its part when violations of relevant laws were identified with the ministry’s help.