Turkish PM Erdoğan continues salvo against main opposition CHP

ADIYAMAN

PM Erdoğan called former president and long-time CHP leader İnönü dictator. AA Photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued his salvo against the opposition during his party’s rally in the southern province of Adıyaman on March 4.

Erdoğan geared up his rhetoric against the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in response to comments from its leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu describing him as a dictator, by calling Turkey’s former president and long-time CHP leader İsmet İnönü a dictator in return. “We have asked and looked around, to end up finding the dictator. It is within you, CHP. It’s İnönü. He had been one of the first [leaders] to congratulate when Nazism or fascism came into power,” Erdoğan told his party’s supporters.

“They are the main ones responsible for the Dersim massacre. But although they are the main people responsible, the director-general of CHP, who is from Dersim as well, cannot even say a couple of words regarding the Dersim massacre. He cannot because as soon as he says it, he will be engulfed in the swamp and he knows it,” Erdoğan said.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is heading into the local elections facing unprecedented accusations of corruption. Tapes leaked onto the Internet featuring alleged phone conversations between Erdoğan and his son also involved the prime minister’s name in the vast web of allegations. 

Erdoğan accused the CHP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the movement of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen of having joined forces to topple the AKP after orchestrating the graft probes.

“The people will ask for account from this at the ballot box, and then we will ask for account from it with legal means. No one will be able to stop Turkey’s auspicious march, may you not have any concerns,” Erdoğan said.