Gov’t to submit reform packages to parliament: Erdoğan

ANKARA

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will soon submit reform packages devoted to upgrade the democratic and economic standards, AKP Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, vowing these reforms will help Turkey reach its 2023 targets and beyond.

“Very soon, we will start to submit the new reform packages that we are about to conclude to parliament. When we will outline the packages, it will be seen that these reform proposals will contain regulations that will move our country forward to 2023 and beyond,” Erdoğan said in his weekly address to the AKP parliamentary group on Jan. 27.

The sweeping reforms “will prepare Turkey for the future in a wide area from basic rights and freedoms to strengthening the climate of economic confidence,” said Erdoğan.

The government is about to finalize two-months-long work on the reform packages which also include the Human Rights Action Plan. Erdoğan had first mentioned his government’s plans to upgrade the democracy and economy in mid-November. It’s believed that these reforms will add a new incentive on the ongoing reconciliation between Turkey and the European Union as well.

Following on the reforms it has carried out since coming to power in 2002, with these new reforms the AKP will take additional steps, he said. “Our preparations for our legal and economic reforms, which we see as an inseparable part of change and development, have been shaped to a great extent,” he said.

After consideration of the reforms by the party’s Central Executive Board, the comprehensive reform proposals will soon be made public, he added.

'No early polls’

Erdoğan also slammed the opposition leaders for calling for early elections. “There will be no early elections. They are asking for early polls. If you have patience you will wait until June 2023. We have a lot to do until then,” Erdoğan said.

Turkish people will not vote for those whose sole promise is to remove the president from power, he said, slamming main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for insulting him.

“People will give necessary lessons to those who have turned the first political party of the republic into the support of the separatist organization, Erdoğan stressed, strongly accusing Kılıçdaroğlu of describing all those who have voted for the AKP in the past as “militants.”

“For them, the People’s Alliance and the AKP are nothing but full of militants. In fact, for them, 75 percent of the people who did not vote for them are militants. And they believe the people who don’t vote for the CHP have no dignity and honor,” Erdoğan.

He called on everybody who felt insulted by Kılıçdaroğlu’s words to start a legal action against the opposition leader.