Kurtulmuş vows to stick to principles

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Head of the People’s Voice Party (HSP) Numan Kurtulmuş, who intends to accept Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s proposal for merging the HSP with his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), pledged yesterday to abide by the basic principles which have dominated his political life from the start.

“The public knows Numan Kurtulmuş and his friends closely,” Kurtulmuş told reporters, referring to himself in the third person. “None of us have a concern about high-offices or money. Our matter is not people or parties. Our matter is this nation’s reach to the highest point. Our matter is to display a determination which will recreate and rebuild our civilization,” he said. His remarks came as an apparent response to those who questioned Kurtulmuş’s participation in the AKP or his cooperation with Erdoğan given the fact that in the past Kurtulmuş had severely denounced the AKP’s policies. Kurtulmuş was also criticized by some of his companions and followers on the assumption that he looks favorably on Erdoğan’s proposal because his name is on Erdoğan’s mind as a possible successor.

Kurtulmuş’s remarks, made in the capital of Ankara, came ahead of a meeting of HSP provincial chamber chairs. Just a day before Sunday’s meeting, Mehmet Bekaroğlu, the head of the Istanbul chamber of HSP who has long voiced his objection to a prospective merge with AKP, resigned from his post at HSP. Bekaroğlu would have most likely expressed his objection in clear terms during yesterday’s meeting when Kurtulmuş sought the approval for an AKP-HSP merger from the provincial chairs if he had not resigned.