Turkey's main opposition leader claims to reveal Erdoğan's plan to flee to US after elections

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Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has claimed to reveal President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plans to flee Turkey after a possible election defeat.

Releasing a video on his Twitter account last night (May 24), Kılıçdaroğlu said they had obtained documents of the money transfer to the US through two foundations, the Ensar Foundation and the Turkey Youth and Education Service Foundation (TÜRGEV).

The two foundations are working together with another foundation based in the US and members of the Erdoğan family are directly involved in the transactions, he claimed.

About the reason why the Erdoğan family plans to take refuge in the US, he said, "You would expect them to go to Qatar. But there is no law there. They would send them back. But they can hide behind the American laws."

Kılıçdaroğlu also addressed bureaucrats, calling on them not to follow illegal orders. "Good days are waiting for the honest and honorable bureaucrats during our time in power," he remarked.

After Kılıçdaroğlu's video, several journalists released documents claiming to show transactions between the two foundations and the TURKEN foundation in the US.

The documents show that the two foundations sent tens of millions of dollars to TURKEN in months. On its website, TURKEN says it was founded by TÜRGEV and Ensar and hosts 50 students in eight "student houses" in several cities.

Onlar kaçacak yer ararken, bizim başka memleketimiz yok. Biz bir yere gitmiyoruz, bu devleti birlikte ayağa kaldıracağız. Başını dik tut sevgili halkım. Sen varsın ve daha iyisini hak ediyorsun. Geliyor mutlu, huzurlu günler! #BizeKatılın pic.twitter.com/bAfrX3Hea8

— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 24, 2022

The government's response

Ömer Çelik, the spokesperson of Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said Kılıçdaroğlu's statements were "not a way of politics but a smear campaign."

"So far, Kılıçdaroğlu has made lots of baseless allegations and said, 'I'll reveal documents.' But his statements have had no consequences. All of those statements have produced nothing but environmental pollution," he wrote on Twitter.

Fahrettin Altun, the head of the Presidency Communications Directorate, said TÜRGEV and the Ensar Foundation are "institutions working for the country's youth" and it was unfair to act as if those documents were confidential.

TÜRGEV also released a statement, saying Kılıçdaroğlu's claims had no legal or moral basis. (VK)