Erdoğan slams BDP leader over statue

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş (L) says they will erect a statue of convicted leader of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan. AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş for suggesting they would erect a statue of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who is serving a life sentence in an island prison.

“Their minds are capable of only erecting statues while everywhere in the world, statues of dictators are being destroyed. As I have said dozens of times, the BDP is taking firm steps toward becoming the CHP [main opposition Republican People’s Party] of the east and the southeast,” Erdoğan said, vowing that the statues the BDP was thinking of would be destroyed before being erected.

Speaking at a demonstration in the southeastern city of Mardin, Demirtaş criticized reactions against Kurdish people hanging posters of Öcalan. Condemning the erection of statues of infamous coup leader Kenan Evren in the country, Demirtaş said: “I call on you, those who are not bothered about Kurd-killer Kenan Evren’s statues being erected [and] schools named after Kurd-killer Kenan Evren. If they [Kurds] cannot hang Öcalan’s poster in Kurdistan, then where they would have hung it we will erect his statue. Put that in your mind.”

Erdoğan harshly criticized Demirtaş and said statues of dictators were being destroyed in the Middle East.
“Don’t worry, their statues will not find even a pedestal in this land,” Erdoğan said.