Bahçeli denies his party's involvement in recent attacks on journalists

Photo: AA

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Having been accused of inciting the recent assaults on two journalists and a politician, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli has said that it is "a far-fetched and despotic allegation."

"We don't hesitate to take the bull by the horns for the Turkish nation and bravely claim [what we do]," he told his party's parliamentary group today (January 26). "Being portrayed as the perpetrator of an attack that we weren't a party to is a cheap provocation tactic."

On January 14 and 15, two journalists and a politician in Ankara, the capital, were physically assaulted in front of their homes. One of the journalists was the former head of the Grey Wolves, an ultranationalist group affiliated with the MHP.

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Semih Yalçın, the deputy chair of the MHP, said after the attacks that the party had "a lot of madmen who wouldn't wait for instructions."

Bahçeli further claimed that there were some "who organized attacks against themselves" to become a subject of debate.

He also mentioned the protests by the academics and students of Boğaziçi University against the rector appointment by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying that it was a "rehearsal" for a Russia-like crisis to start in Turkey. (AS/VK)