President, PM deny ISIL launched Kobane attack from Turkey, accuse HDP of ‘provocation’

ANKARA

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu have both vehemently denied as “propaganda” accusations that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists were allowed to cross from Turkey into Syria to launch a fresh assault on the symbolic battleground town of Kobane.

Erdoğan and Davutoğlu also separately delivered statements accusing the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of “provocation” after it blamed the deadly attack in Kobane on Turkish state support for the ISIL fighters.

“We curse this attack - which targeted innocent civilians - in the strongest way,” Erdoğan said late on June 25, in a speech delivered at a fast-breaking dinner hosted by the Anatolian Tiger Businessmen’s Association (ASKON) in Istanbul.

“But after this atrocious attack, we see how spheres that sponsored the separatist organization [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party/PKK] and the political party’s notables conducted a slander and smear campaign against our country and repudiating principles, morals and borders,” he added.

“With nonsense accusations that have no basis, without taking lessons from the Oct. 6-7 incidents, they are aiming to provoke our nation. I want to express one more time from here, loud and clear: Nobody has the right to show Turkey in the same line as terror,” Erdoğan said.

HDP co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ had told reporters earlier on June 25 that there was a “high probability” that the ISIL had entered Kobane from Turkey, describing the ISIL attack as a “massacre.”

“The Turkish government has supported ISIL for years. Today’s massacre is part of this support,” Yüksekdağ said at a press conference. “The remarks of Turkish politicians are null and void for us. It is up to the Turkish government to prove that it does not support ISIL.”

According to Erdoğan, such statements show that the HDP is not a party embracing the whole of Turkey as it claimed. 

“Those who are an instrument of international lobbies that are hostile of Turkey and those who are manipulated by the [Syrian President Bashar-al] Assad regime should first of all question themselves. The path to becoming a party of Turkey does not pass through subcontracting to these spheres, but means carrying a torch for this country and dignifying this country. Being a party of Turkey does not just happen with words, it happens with deeds. People, who praise this party should see one more time that it stands in the same line as those ignorant people who associated Turkey with an international terrorist organization,” he said. 

Prime Minister Davutoğlu also slammed the same accusations. 

“Turkey hasn’t even made a small contribution to any bloodshed in Syria. Rather, Turkey has displayed the clearest attitude against the Daesh terror organization and all these claims are solely slander,” Davutoğlu said in Ankara late on June 25, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL. 

“Those who claim that Turkey has cooperated with Daesh are obliged to prove that accusation. Otherwise, I call on those who severely indicted the country to which they belong and the nation that they represent - forgetting the oath they took at parliament two days ago - to apologize, with the HDP co-chair in first place,” he added.