Turkish PM Erdoğan, parliament speaker hold emergency meeting

ISTANBUL

The meeting gathering the 50-seat Central Decision and Executive Council (MKYK) of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) started at 1 p.m. AA photo

Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have held an emergency meeting today amid the country-wide demonstrations over the demolition of Istanbul’s Gezi Park. No statement has been made after the meeting that lasted around an hour.

Apart from the ongoing nationwide discussion over the Gezi Park protests, the meeting between the country’s most important politicians was also expected to focus on the process to draft a new Constitution.

Çiçek, who is heading a parliamentary panel tasked with rewriting the Constitution, was expected to brief Erdoğan at the progress of the four-party panel drafting the document. Thanks to a push from Çiçek, the parties have now agreed on around 50 articles, but that is still less than half of the proposed charter. 

Another main issue is the election of the parliamentary speaker as Çiçek’s mandate will expire in early July. Erdoğan is expected to ask Çiçek to continue for another two years in a bid to avoid harming the ongoing charter process. An election for the post is likely to take place on June 28, but the election procedure is expected to begin next week. 

Erdoğan had also called an extraordinary meeting of the highest decision-making body of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The meeting gathering the 50-seat Central Decision and Executive Council (MKYK) started early in the afternoon. Although such gatherings usually take place at the AKP headquarters in Ankara, today’s meeting was atypically held in Istanbul.