Erdoğan repeats disappointment over former top intel chief’s resignation

Akif Beki RIYADH

Hürriyet Photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeated his disappointment with former head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Hakan Fidan’s resignation from the post to run for parliament during the June 7 elections.

“We are governing a state. I have already expressed my opinion about that issue. There is of course a disappointment if a candidacy is in question even though we have expressed our opinions,” said Erdoğan en route to Turkey from Saudi Arabia, where he met with the country’s new King Salman.

“We brought [Fidan] to such a position. I am the one who brought him there. If so, when departing, he should have stayed and not left there if he was not being allowed to do so,” said Erdoğan.

Erdoğan said the MİT was the state’s most important organization and if a state’s intelligence office was weak, the state’s lasting was not possible.

Fidan, who is one of Erdoğan’s closest confidants, resigned late Feb. 6, in order to run in a parliamentary election in June for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Sources in the Prime Minister’s office told daily Hürriyet late Feb. 6 that the petition of resignation that Fidan presented was accepted by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. The resignation took effect as of Feb. 10.