President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has defied EU criticism over the arrests of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers and journalists, saying that Turkey is “no longer subject to orders.”
“I don’t care if they call me a dictator or whatever else. It goes in one ear, out the other,” Erdoğan said on Nov. 6 in Istanbul during a ceremony to receive an honorary doctorate.
“What matters is what my people call me,” he added.
The West should not hope to “bring Turkey into line” with such pressures as “newspapers, caricatures, calling us a dictator, and so on, expecting that we would take a step back. They should not expect this. We know these [tactics] very well,” Erdoğan said.
After “incidents experienced over the past three years,” Turkey has changed its point of view of events and has drawn a new path for itself, he said, adding that Ankara’s “criteria is now to do whatever it takes for the future of our country and nation.”
Erdoğan added that the West will “eventually understand that I have come to serve my people, not dominate over them.”
His latest angry remarks came after EU officials and governments criticized Ankara after nine lawmakers of the HDP, including its co-leaders, were arrested on Nov. 4 on charges of terrorism. The arrest of nine Cumhuriyet journalists on Nov. 5 added to the criticism.
However, the Turkish president said those arrested were involved in “terrorist activities,” and complained that EU did not give enough support in Turkey’s fight against terrorism.