CHP leader warns against provocations similar to disrespectful act at Istanbul church

ANKARA

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on July 13 said an incident in which some people dancing atop a wall above the entrance door of the Surp Takavor Armenian Church in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district were provocateurs and warned against imminent similar incidents in the upcoming days.

“We will not forget that those who took to the wall of a church in Kadıköy and protested were provocateurs. There may be such events in the coming period, we all need to be careful,” he said at the CHP’s parliamentary group meeting.

“We will not accept this,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that he instructed CHP mayors on the subject.

The Anadolu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul launched an investigation into a group playing music and dancing next to a stone cross atop the large courtyard gate of the church and three people have been detained.

Kılıçdaroğlu also stressed that the country is having more and more economic problems and the difficulties of the citizens are worsening.

He said the CHP has been making the biggest efforts in his party’s history to determine these problems as party officials are also carrying out intensive field visits to members of different professions.

“It is perhaps the first time in the history of the CHP that it has been working this hard,” the CHP leader said.

He vowed his party will solve all problems if they come to power in the elections.

“Why are we detecting the problems now? Not to waste time when we come to power. We have all the information that no academic at any university has. We know the problems of the tradesmen, the industrialists, the unemployed and the coffee makers. We are also producing solutions for all of them,” he stated.