Turkish main opposition leader hits out at gov’t for ‘seeking help from terrorists’

İZMİR

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu speaks to reporters in İzmir, May 28. AA Photo

Turkey’s main opposition leader has asked how the government can take an illegal organization as a counterpart when asked about children allegedly abducted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu May 28 criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for urging Kurdish politicians to intervene in the situation of the children, who were allegedly kidnapped in Diyarbakır’s Lice district on April 23.

“The government is not a place to cry. And the prime minister is not the opposition party leader,” Kılıçdaroğlu told reporters. “What kind of a prime minister is this that seeks help from an illegal organization? For God’s sake, who is running this country?”

On May 27, Erdoğan called on Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) members to “go and get these children,” from Kandil, where PKK militants are, since they “know their addresses very well.”

Kılıçdaroğlu also hit out at Erdoğan’s claim that the government “will operate using our plan B and plan C,” if the BDP fails in its quest. “He has this plan B and plan C, forget about it,” he said. “If you are in need of the help of an illegal organization and you say it, you cannot be in the prime minister’s office.”
Protests against the alleged kidnapping of children by the PKK have grown in the southeast over the last weeks. The families of 16 “abducted” children began a sit-in protest in Diyarbakır on May 20.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) parliamentary group deputy chair Oktay Vural also claimed that the state had lost control of southeast Turkey.

“Children are abducted, mothers are crying. The terrorist organization blocks the roads between two cities for two days, and the state is silent,” said Vural, adding that people in southeastern Turkey were looking for the state.

“Children are abducted, where are you?” asked Vural. “You have left the east and the southeast to the PKK.”