Turkish PM increases rhetoric against CHP, accusing it of fomenting unrest

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan participates to a mass opening ceremony in the eastern city of Adıyaman, Sept. 14. AA photo

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) of fomenting unrest across the country, particularly through a sectarian tension. 
 
“We am particularly calling on our Alevi brothers. There are attempts to exhibit a dirty scenario involving the main opposition. There are attempts to set the streets on fire. A dirty hand is using the main opposition as a tool to create unrest,” Erdoğan said, during a mass opening ceremony in the eastern Adiyaman province on Sept. 14.
 
“Alevis and Sunnis are one on this land. We won’t fall into the traps of provocateurs [manipulated] by the enemies of Turkey,” Erdoğan said.
 
Erdoğan suggested that there were attempts to stage incidents that were similar to the Kahramanmaraş and Çorum massacres, deadly sectarian clashes which took place in 1978 and 1980 respectively.
 
Erdoğan argued that the condition of Alevis had improved much more during the ongoing Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) rule, with respect to the situation in the past, than under any other government.
 
“How many cemevis has CHP opened in its history? […] They should look at how many cemevis have been opened during the AKP government and Tayyip Erdoğan’s tenure as the Istanbul mayor,” Erdoğan said, also accusing CHP of not recognizing the 1938 massacre in Dersim, today known as Tunceli, which took place during the single-party era.
 
“CHP did not render Dersim’s account. Unfortunately they are now trying to foment unrest in all of our provinces,” he said, arguing that CHP wanted a fresh coup against the AKP government.
 
“I’m calling on the young people who walk around with Molotov Cocktails in their hands and the CHP deputies who are behind them. If you have confidence in yourself, the ballot box is the honor of the regime in democracies,” Erdoğan said. “[Turkey] is not Egypt, nor Syria.”
 
‘Assimilation policies are over’
 
Amid fresh tensions which erupted following an initiative to build a complex which would include a Sunni Mosque and an Alevi cemevi in Ankara, Erdoğan said that policies of denial and assimilation were over. 
 
“There have been times when you could not speak even on the phone with your mom in your mother tongue. You had to hide to listen to your own songs. Whatever you have been through here, we have been through similar things. The color and tone were different, but the oppression and the oppressor were the same,” he said.
 
‘Those who have power don’t take steps’
 
Regarding Syria, Erdoğan once more condemned countries for not taking action. Without immediately commenting on the deal between Russia and the United States over Syria’s chemical weapons, Erdoğan said that the bombings and shelling by the Syrian regime should be accounted for.
 
“Where is the world’s voice? The United Nation’s permanent members have yet to take a decision. Those who have power don’t take steps,” Erdoğan told the crowd.
 
Before his speech, Erdoğan also participated to the opening of Adıyaman’s new airport. It was the fourth airport to be opened after the ones in Bingöl, Kastamonu and Şırnak.