Erdoğan: A Group of Vampire Intellectuals Has Emerged

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the awarding of Peter Handke with the Nobel Prize in Literature shows that "a community of vampire intellectuals has emerged."

"Nobel giving the award to this representative of the group of vampire intellectuals shows that a community of vampire intellectuals has emerged," Erdoğan said, speaking in the capital Ankara.

"The prize you gave is not the prize that is not the prize that was given to Aziz Sancar or Orhan Pamuk," he added.

Erdoğan yesterday (December 10) said the Swedish Academy had given a prize to "a terrorist from Turkey." Presidency's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun later in the day said he didn't refer to Pamuk or Sancar but did not clarify whom he referred to.

CLICK - Erdoğan: Swedish Academy Awarded Prize to a Terrorist in Turkey

Orham Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and Aziz Sancar was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015.

The President also thanked political leaders for supporting protests against Handke being awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Handke was awarded the prize despite his open support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 during his trial for war crimes and genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Handke is also accused of denying the 1995 Bosnian genocide by Dr. Christina Doctare, who received the prize for her service as a physician in the UN peacekeeping forces. (PT/VK)