Bahçeli: AKP’s promises for ‘stability, serenity’ already failed

ANKARA

DHA File Photo

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has failed to live up to its promises to bring “stability and serenity” to the country, the nationalist opposition leader said, while also offering condolences to Paris following the Nov. 13 jihadist attack on the French capital.

“Almost two weeks passed since the Nov. 1 election. They were saying that ‘stability and serenity will come.’ There is no such sign at all,” Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said late Nov. 14, while recalling that members of security forces were still being killed in the ongoing fight with militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“Anyhow, lies are knee-deep and too many believe in them. Those who cite ‘stability’ couldn’t yet enter three neighborhoods in Silvan which some are trying to turn into Kobane,” Bahçeli said in messages posted to his Twitter account.

Earlier on Nov. 14, Turkish authorities lifted a punitive curfew in the flashpoint southeastern town of Silvan in Diyarbakır that was imposed on Nov. 3 as Turkish security forces backed up by tanks and combat helicopters launched a large-scale operation to retake control of areas of the town in which locals had dug trenches and erected barricades to protect themselves against incursions by security forces.

“Now, the G-20 meeting will be held in Antalya. People are dying like flies because of terror; Damascus is already inside Paris,” Bahçeli said, while indicating that the world leaders attending the G-20 summit had still not fully comprehended the gravity of the situation. “I hope that those countries who use terror as a political tool and a means for regional design draw a lesson from this sorrowful picture.”