AKP official clarifies his remarks regarding ‘liberals’

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Aziz Babuşçu. AA Photo

Babuşçu said a part of his speech given in a meeting with a think-tank group had been misinterpreted by some media outlets and columnists.

“Some interpretations were made as if we had excluded liberals, parted our ways with them and had a hidden agenda. This is totally untrue, rambling, and far from reality,” he said in a written statement released April 5. “In my speech a generalization was not made regarding liberals, it was only my criticism of those prominent persons who failed in the test of our democracy struggle and who retreated behind the status quo-defending nationalist circles.”

On April 2, Babuşçu had said that some groups such as “liberals,” which had been the partners of the government over the last 10 years of the AKP’s rule, would no longer side with the administration amid the creation of a new Turkey.

“Those who have become stakeholders during our 10-year rule will not be allowed to remain so during our next decade. During the past 10 years there were stakeholders for the ‘liquidation’ and ‘redefinition’ process on the basis of the discourse we carried out on freedom, law and justice. For instance, liberal groups have been such stakeholders in one way or another, despite the fact that they have not been able to ‘absorb’ - in other words ‘approve of’ - us. But the future will be a reconstruction period. Reconstruction will not be as they desire it to be. Therefore they will not be able to be with us.

Those who have ‘walked together’ with us will become stakeholders with those who are against us.

Turkey and its restored future will not be a future they will be able to accept. That is why our job will be much more difficult,” he had said.

The words stirred strong reactions from liberal circles, journalists and columnists.

Babuşçu’s remarks and the reactions to them can be seen here:
 
"Turkish ruling party ‘to leave liberals out’"