Shame on professors: Turkish PM
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. AA photo
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier today harshly criticized the professors of the students who protested against him at the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) campus on Dec. 18."What a shame! Shame on the professors who raised those students. Instructors first have to teach their students how to be respectful. We were also students once but never resorted to violence. Those students burned car tires, threw stones and sticks, but you can never see someone criticizing them and their attitude. Is violence and terror a protest? Is this how it has to be?" he said during a speech at the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) general assembly in the capital of Ankara.
Erdoğan has also commented once more on the principle of separation of powers. This time, he targeted the opposition and media.
"It is an old sickness of the opposition and media to take one phrase from the whole statement and write scenarios in it. The main opposition party leader [Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu] tries to give us an introduction to political science lesson, but he could never pass it himself. He fails all the time. We know the principle of separation of powers very well, as it should be in a democracy. But they defended the unity of powers until the multi-party period. Since the 1960 coup, what they have understood from this principle is the separation in the army as Air Force, Navy and Land Forces," Erdoğan said.
"We have a problem with the media. It is their mission to announce good things to my people. This is what I want. But tomorrow you'll see headlines saying the prime minister slammed the media," he added.
