Turkey’s main opposition seeks parliamentary probe into forest fires

The motion by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was jointly presented on June 27 to the Parliament Speaker’s Office by the party’s deputy parliamentary group chair, Manisa deputy Özgür Özel, and Istanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, who is also a member of the CHP party assembly.

“In order to find effective solutions to forest fires by researching the causes of forest fires and the loss of lives and property,” the stated reasoning for the motion presented to Parliament Speaker İsmail Kahraman said.

“There is a concern in the public opinion that reconstruction permits will be granted for the areas that were damaged by forest fires and that these areas will be turned into tourism and housing zones or will be sold,” Özel and Tanrıkulu said in their reasoning for filing the motion.

“In this regard, investigation into how forest fires emerged, sufficiency of precautions, investigation into the loss of lives to date, investigation into negligence of duty generating from the administration and other such topics could arise,” they argued.