President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) of becoming Turkey’s “main treason party,” blasting its leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as “discredited” and “extremely confused.”
“It’s very unfortunate to observe the CHP rapidly sliding into a status of the main treason party because of this person [Kılıçdaroğlu],” Erdoğan said in a weekly address to his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) parliamentary group on Nov 28.
Tension between the two parties escalated once again after Kılıçdaroğlu accused Erdoğan and his family of having offshore bank accounts worth of millions of dollars last week. On Nov. 28, Erdoğan repeated his challenge to Kılıçdaroğlu to either prove his claims or resign from his position, vowing to do the same if the CHP leader can prove that he or his family members have money abroad.
“He made such claims in the past and probably will repeat them again. Can he prove these with documents? No,” he said, criticizing the CHP leader for revisiting claims he could never prove in the past.
“In such a sensitive period, when we try to pursue positive politics and try to be inclusive, the head of the main opposition is behaving in a disreputable way. The only thing he has done since becoming the head of his party is slander. It’s not just about myself and my family, he and his party side with whoever is attacking Turkey,” Erdoğan said.
He said the CHP leader has been “taking the side of the EU, the U.S., Syria or any other country in the world when Turkey has disagreements with them.
“They have just one policy: Say and do whatever is the opposite of what we and the AK Party does,” Erdoğan said.
‘No politeness left in politics’
He also voiced praise for Kılıçdaroğlu’s predecessor as CHP head, Deniz Baykal, who he described as a “responsible and credible political rival, even though we engaged in serious polemics.”
“Today there is no such thing as political politeness ... If we do not respond to their claims, they will believe that impudence is the way to doing politics; if we respond to them, we find ourselves dropping down to their league,” Erdoğan said, again vowing to sue Kılıçdaroğlu over his claims against him and his family.
“He is moving in line with his character. We will continue to seek justice through legal means. We will no longer turn the other cheek. If you hit me, you must be ready [to be hit],” he added.