President Erdoğan slams HDP for not condemning PKK terrorism

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for not denouncing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) killing of two policemen in Turkey’s southeastern Anatolian region on July 22. 

“It’s disgraceful for circles -who have openly expressed that they rely on the terror organization- to not be able to show courage to condemn and instead remain silent on the PKK’s brutal terror acts,” President Erdoğan said in a written message late July 22. This message of Erdoğan indirectly referred to HDP leadership who expressed its regret over the incident but did not condemn the PKK. 

Erdoğan decried the killing of two policemen in his statement while vowing that Turkey was taking all necessary steps to find out the perpetrators of the policemen murders, as well as the suicide bombing by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Suruç province of Şanlıurfa, which claimed the lives of 32 activists July 20. 

President Erdoğan accused some circles of trying to ignore terror acts committed by the PKK and of depicting the organization as gracious, adding “…these [actions] openly show what their intentions are.” Erdoğan vowed no tolerance to those who threaten Turkey’s peace, comfort and unity. 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu assured the public that the recent terror acts in Şanlıurfa will all be brought to light and perpetrators will be brought to justice. “Any terror organization, either [ISIL], who attempted to take the lives of young people, or the PKK, who is firing bullets at our policemen, soldiers and citizens, will receive the same response from us,” he said on his Twitter account late July 22.