Turkish PM reiterates: CHP, HDP collaborators of Assad’s cruelty

ANKARA

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu delivers a speech at an expanded meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) provincial chairs, Oct. 24. AA Photo

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has accused two opposition parties of remaining indifferent to the cruelty in neighboring Syria, in a speech peppered with personal anecdotes and passages from Islamic history.

Particularly aiming at main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after the latter suggested that Davutoğlu had become a "puppet" prime minister because his constitutional authority is constantly being overridden by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Davutoğlu said Kılıçdaroğlu had not displayed the high caliber of leadership required for the main opposition leader of a country.

Delivering a speech at an expanded meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) provincial chairs on Oct. 24, the prime minister recalled “claims” suggesting that “Seats are vacant in Turkey.” Without giving a name, Davutoğlu appeared to be referring to the CHP leader, who earlier in the same day said the prime ministry seat was vacant and implied that Davutoğlu was not able to execute his authority.

“In Turkey, the main opposition party’s seat is vacant. We are looking for a main opposition party. We are looking for a leader of high caliber who can challenge us,” Davutoğlu said.

Both the CHP and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have remained silent to the cruelty in both Iraq and Syria, he also argued.

“We will call the victim a victim and the cruel, cruel, even if the entire world is against us. We will continue standing by victims. The CHP is standing by [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad. The CHP and the HDP remained silent in the face of photographs coming from Syria. The barbaric al-Assad killed thousands of people with gas, exactly the same as Karbala,” Davutoğlu said, claiming that Kılıçdaroğlu knew nothing about Karbala or Turkey’s history.

In the Battle of Karbala of 680 A.D., the supporters and relatives of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali were all killed by the forces of Yazid I, the Sunni Umayyad caliph, who Husayn had refused to recognize as caliph. The dead are regarded as martyrs by Muslims, and the battle has a central place in Shiite history and tradition. Accounts of the battle do not mention the usage of any gas.

“You don’t know Turkish history, humanitarian history, or the history of Karbala; you should at least know the history of the CHP. There is only one party that identified the state with the party and that’s the CHP,” Davutoğlu added, in response to Kılıçdaroğlu who maintained that the AKP had become “the state” instead of a party governing the state.

“The AK Parti is the party which represents the spirit of Hijra, Muharram and Karbala and the morality of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari and of Hazrat Hussein,” he said.

Argument for ‘a terrorist’

Davutoğlu also strongly defended a much criticized homeland security bill, vowing that nobody terrorizing society would be forgiven, no matter what their age is.

“We will not let anybody create an environment of terror in society. I am warning: Nobody should start saying, ‘His age was young, etc.’ Can a demonstration be held by wearing a mask?” he said.

A Gezi protest victim, 14-year-old Berkin Elvan, was hit in the head by a police gas canister and passed away in March 2014, after having been in a coma for nine months. At the time, then-Prime Minister Erdoğan had accused Elvan of being a member of a terrorist organization and insistently argued that Elvan was not innocent because he was allegedly wearing a mask and his pockets were full of explosives when he was shot by police.

Elvan was going out to by bread for his mother on a Sunday morning when he was struck and killed by police, and his funeral in March drew hundreds of thousands of mourners.