CHP leader poses five questions to Erdoğan regarding PKK killing in Gara

ANKARA

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Feb. 16 criticized the government for not taking the “necessary steps” to rescue 13 Turkish nationals that were killed by the illegal PKK group. The CHP leader has posed five questions to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and held him responsible over the incident.

“What have you done as the president of the republic since 2015 to save the children of the country that the separatist terrorist organization has kept for five-and-a-half years?” Kılıçdaroğlu said, speaking at the CHP’s parliamentary group meeting.

If the CHP did not submit parliamentary questions and not held press conferences on the issue when they were kidnapped, nobody would have even learned about the abduction of 13 Turkish citizens back then, he said.

“While you were asking for a letter from Abdullah Öcalan, the head of the terrorist organization, to help you in the elections, why you did not ask him to make a call for the release of the children of this country? Were the Istanbul elections more valuable to you than the 13 children of this nation?” the CHP leader asked.

He also asked Erdoğan why he did not ask for help from then-U.S. President Donald Trump to save Turks in Iraq despite their “friendship.”

Kılıçdaroğlu questioned why the government did not ask for help from national human rights organizations such as the Human Rights Foundation, Human Rights Association and Mazlum- Der, and international human rights organizations, who have “contributed greatly” to the solution of the problem in similar incidents before and for the release of Turks abducted by the PKK.

“In the statements you made in [Black Sea province of] Rize yesterday [on Feb. 15], you said that one of the goals of the cross-border operation was the rescue of our 13 martyrs, but you failed. Who will undertake the failure of the operation launched to save 13 citizens? Who is responsible for this?” Kılıçdaroğlu asked Erdoğan.