No winner in dirty war, Turkish PM says

ANKARA

Deputies applaud Prime Minister Erdoğan before a speech at the Parliament. DAILY NEWS photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned opposition parties objecting to the “peace process” that the government has launched, saying that there would be “no winner of a dirty war.”

“There is no loser of an honorable peace. Blood cannot be washed by blood,” Erdoğan said yesterday addressing his parliament group.

The prime minister also warned against possible sabotage attempts aimed at hindering the peace process. “We are alert particularly against any sabotage, instigation. We are determined to proceed with the [peace] process, end violence, and make the spring permanent,” he said, adding that they hoped the peace process would not be reversed.

Erdoğan accused opposition parties of benefiting from the ongoing three-decade-long conflict between the official security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as he said parties opposing the “peace process” were in a game in which they had been frightening people with terrorism to manipulate politics, society and the region. Yet, he argued that his government intervened with this scheme.

“What is it that bothers you? Why are you this blood-thirsty?” Erdoğan asked, as he harshly criticized the attitude of the opposition parties, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). “This process can never be defined with concepts of victory and defeat. The losers of this process will be the blood lovers. The losers of this process are the leaders of the politics of fear and conflict,” he said.

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the MHP, accused the PM of “embracing the PKK,” as he said his party would not let “the terrorist collaborators run over the memories of martyrs.” Addressing his parliament group yesterday, Bahçeli suggested that the rising nationalism was worrying the PM and “his terrorist friends who are convicted of separation,” and the public was now becoming aware of the scheme.

Bahçeli also questioned whether the PM had given any orders to the security forces not to shoot the terrorists. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of Republican People’s Party (CHP), accused Erdoğan of being a “slave of the PKK, since he is not able to use his free will under the shadow of arms and surrendered to” what the PKK said. Speaking to his Palimament group, Kılıçdaroğlu dismissed Erdoğan’s claim that the CHP was opposing peace.