CHP leader suggests Sudan for PM Erdoğan’s post-election exile

DENİZLİ / ANKARA

CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu speaks to his supporters during an election rally in the Aegean province of Denizli. AA photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has maintained that Sudan, governed by President Omar al-Bashir, would be an appropriate place for exile for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after the March 30 local elections.

Erdoğan has been portraying the CHP as a party which has no concrete projects for the country, Kılıçdaroğlu said yesterday, maintaining that this was because Erdoğan was so busy with corrupt work that he had no idea about those projects.

“But I will explain [these projects] to my nation. During the CHP rule, he will flee abroad. I have found an appropriate country for him: Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan. He [Bashir] was tried before an international court for committing a massacre and he was convicted,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

Back in 2008, al-Bashir attended a summit of African leaders in Turkey, shortly after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor asked the court to issue an arrest warrant related to crimes in Darfur.

Neither Sudan nor Turkey recognizes the international court based at The Hague. In 2009, Turkey avoided a visit to Istanbul from al-Bashir through a last-minute intervention. Erdoğan’s then denial of Darfur atrocities by saying “a Muslim can never commit genocide” at the time caused a reaction.

Meanwhile, speaking in an interview on Kral FM radio, Kılıçdaroğlu confirmed that the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), sister-party of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which shares the same grassroots as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), approached the CHP about cooperating for the elections.

“That’s true, such a proposal came and we didn’t found it appropriate. When I got involved in politics, I said that I would tell the truth to people. They came, they offered cooperation and we didn’t accept. We said, ‘This will harm us.’ I’ve been telling the same view today, too,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, when reminded of earlier remarks by HDP co-leader Sebahat Tuncel.