Turkish PM stresses AKP’s ‘common cause’ amid speculations of rift

“I can turn away from any job position, but I won’t break the hearts of my friends, with whom we share a common cause,” Davutoğlu said at a parliamentary group meeting of the AKP on May 3.

“I’ll step aside if necessary. I could turn away from any job position that people think that a mortal cannot leave. But I will never break any of my friends’ hearts in this holy movement,” he added. 

“I wouldn’t allow this clean movement and its clean-hearted staff - the only hope of the oppressed all over the world - to become sad,” Davutoğlu also vowed. 

The decision of the AKP’s 50-seat Central Decision and Executive Board’s (MKYK), which was passed with the support of 47 members on April 29, is widely considered to be among the clearest signs yet of tensions between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a founding leader of the party who is pushing for an executive presidency, and Davutoğlu, who would be sidelined if Turkey’s parliamentary system is replaced.

“We won’t betray our country, our people, or the values that make us. We won’t give permission to any betrayers. The millions who pin their hopes upon the AKP should not worry,” Davutoğlu also said, claiming that the AKP is different than other parties that only “pursue their own political interests.”

“We want to make Turkey reach its goals. That is why we are under this supreme roof. We won’t back down from the truth we believe in and clean politics,” he added.

The prime minister said the AKP is “the most valuable movement” that should be protected without “sacrificing it to any debate or calculation.”

“The AK Parti is the name of great cause. We have built this country by paying heavy prices. We are bound to this country with love and loyalty,” Davutoğlu added.