Erdoğan calls on CHP leader to resign amid escalating off-shore bank polemic

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to resign, denying that documents purportedly revealing multi-million dollar transactions of Erdoğan’s close circle, including family members, are proof of off-shore money transactions.

“It is out of the question that any money has been sent abroad. The papers that he [Kılıçdaroğlu] waved as documents and which are all fake have no information even proving that,” Erdoğan said on Dec. 5, addressing his party group at parliament.

“I said that if he can prove that [money of my close circle has been transferred to an off-shore account], I would resign from my post as president. Now I am expecting the same principled and respectable stance from him,” he added.

His comments came after CHP officials revealed banking receipts and SWİFT messages between a company named Bellway Ltd., based in the tax-haven Isle of Man, and Erdoğan’s close circle including his son, his brother, his brother-in-law and a businessman.

CHP Deputy Chair Bülent Tezcan brandished the original documents on Dec. 2, saying they indicate around $15 million traffic between Bellway Ltd. and Erdoğan’s circle.

Tezcan said that if the money was sent to Erdoğan’s close circle rather than abroad then “it would mean either money laundering or tax avoidance.”

The CHP submitted the documents to the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office for investigation on Dec. 4, while Erdoğan accused Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP of “slander.”