CHP says parliament is only way to stop terrorism

ANKARA

DHA photo

The only way to get out of the terror spiral that has gripped Turkey can be found under the roof of the national assembly, the country’s main opposition party has stated, calling on the parliament speaker to mobilize the assembly to take “urgent and sustainable steps” for resolving the issue.

Unity against terror is a priority, the spokesperson for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) said on March 16, emphasizing their party’s hard stance against terrorism.

“We state that in principle, before everything else, [there should be] a unity in the country’s administration [against terror], and for this aim, [counterterrorism efforts] should be exerted by including all parties at parliament, which is the most fundamental body of Turkey, and that this should be done regarding every issue,” CHP’s Spokesperson Selin Sayek Böke said at a press conference after CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu chaired a meeting of his party’s Central Executive Board (MYK).

“As we also said in the letter which we presented to the parliament speaker yesterday, at the moment, there is a single address for getting out of spiral of terror and death which Turkey has been experiencing and that is the parliament. It is producing a solution to this problem by political parties [being] present at parliament in unity,” Böke added.

She was referring to a letter presented by Kılıçdaroğlu to Parliament Speaker İsmail Kahraman as the former visited the latter on March 15.

“We expect you to mobilize the parliament on terror and we believe that the steps which will be taken under your leadership need to be urgent and sustainable,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in his letter, calling on Kahraman to bring all four political parties together in order to kick off a joint effort to resolve terrorism.


‘Arrests for what is not said’

Meanwhile, Böke criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s remarks suggesting that “a terror organization may not necessarily be armed.”

“They want to preserve their power by preventing discussion on policy changes needed for ending terror,” Böke said, extending her criticism to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. “The AKP executives are avoiding discussion on solution of the issue by saying ‘Let’s not politicize this issue,’” just for the sake of not facing criticism, she said.

“On top of that, they display the same stance by using terror as an opportunity to intimidate dissidents. As a matter of fact, only a day after the president’s statement of ‘a terror organization may not necessarily be armed,’ some people must have interpreted these remarks as an order for themselves so that three academics were detained,” Böke said, referring to March 15 detention of three academics on charges of “terrorist propaganda” when they read out a joint petition signed by more than 1,000 colleagues calling for an end to clashes between security forces and militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in January.

“The reason for their detention is for ‘not criticizing the terror organization.’ Arresting people for something that they didn’t say is a practice which can only be seen in totalitarian, one-man regimes,” she said.