Opposition alliance to meet to discuss earthquake disaster

ANKARA

The leaders of the six political parties that make the Nation Alliance will meet on Feb. 18 to discuss the multidimensional impacts of the devastating earthquakes of Feb. 6.

It will be the first encounter of the opposition leaders following the fatal quakes that killed more than 38,000 people in 11 provinces in the southern parts of the country.

Temel Karamollaoğlu of the Felicity Party will host Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Meral Akşener of the İYİ (Good) Party, Gültekin Uysal of the Democrat Party, Ali Babacan of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and Ahmet Davutoğlu of the Future Party at his party’s headquarters.

The meeting will specifically be devoted to the earthquake and how the Nation Alliance will respond to it. Under normal conditions, the opposition leaders had to come together on Feb. 13 to start deliberations on who should be the joint candidate of the Nation Alliance against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next elections.

The meeting on Feb. 18 will allow the opposition leaders to have a comprehensive assessment of the earthquakes with new pledges on the way to the elections. The opposition alliance has already unveiled the backbone of its government program on Jan. 30, but it will have to be revised in light of the severe impacts of the earthquake disaster on the economy, social policies and reconstruction of the earthquake-hit cities, as well as urbanization policies.

All the opposition leaders slammed the government for its insufficient and delayed response to the earthquake.

“There are serious problems over assistance. We are now a country that cannot produce tents. In the past, the Red Crescent had its thousands of tents everywhere immediately after an earthquake. But they collapsed the Red Crescent,” Kılıçdaroğlu was quoted as saying by the daily Sözcü on Feb. 17.

The newly established emergency and disaster agency, AFAD, cannot function properly because of the recruitment of so many incompetent staff to the top management of the institution, he said.