A referendum under these circumstances?
The terrorist who killed innocent people in Reina came from Kyrgyzstan and entered Turkey in Istanbul on Nov. 20, 2016.
It has been established that he came to Turkey before in 2014 and 2015. According to news reports, it is believed that in his previous visits, the terrorist went to Syria illegally and received armed training.
It is not easy to possess intelligence of when and where exactly this type of terrorist will take action. It wouldn’t be fair to blame the intelligence of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) and the police on this issue.
In addition, we also know that security forces have succeeded in apprehending the members of many cells before they acted. But this incident shows that there is a terrorist who came to Turkey twice, went to Syria illegally, participated in conflicts and returned to his country via Turkey.
We can talk about intelligence negligence at this point. How is it possible that he was not detected during these visits?
We should also talk about the fact that our border with Syria has become like Swiss cheese. It has also become apparent that the terrorist has a circle of acquaintances that is not that small. He can rent a house, he can stay within the country and get around, seek help, go and come back to Syria.
Indeed we are attack from multiple fronts. On the one hand, there is the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). On the other hand there is the Fetullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ.) And in addition there is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). We have to admit that the job of the security officials is difficult.
Therefore, how right is it to dwell on a constitutional change that will totally change the country’s administrative system and hold a referendum in such atmosphere?
The coup commission did not do its job
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) head of the parliamentary commission, which was formed to investigate the coup attempt, said 141 persons were ask to testify.
Yet with the votes of the AKP members of that commission, it was decided that questions would not be forwarded to the head of MİT.
There are two more persons who will not asked to testify. One of them is the president, whose life was targeted, and the other is the prime minister, about whom I don’t want to imagine would have happened had the coup succeeded.
The day of the coup attempt, a member of the army went to MİT in the afternoon to inform about a possible coup. In the first preliminary draft of the commission, it was stated that the information was about a military attempt against the head of MİT. Then the head of MİT went to the General Staff and held a meeting with the top soldiers.
The commission should look for the answer to the question of what happened within that five hours 45 minutes and why the coup was not averted in advance. The AKP members of the commission, however, are somehow not curious about this.
This way there will be a so-called investigation. A lot of points will remain in the dark.
At this point let me talk about Aytun Çıray, the commission’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) member who has been complaining about my articles. Çıray says AKP members are obstructing a genuine investigation. He says I am being unfair to the commission’s CHP members. That was not my intention at all. Let me underline one more time that the reason why the commission has not done its work is the AKP members who form the majority of the commission.