İYİ Party Chair Akşener to Erdoğan: Keep grinning

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener spoke at the weekly group meeting of her party at the Parliament today (February 17). Addressing a series of current issues on Turkey's agenda, Akşener also talked about the death of 13 intelligence officers, soldiers and police officers in Gare.

Referring to President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan within this context, İYİ Party leader Akşener said that "when it comes to breaking the news about successful operations, it is done by him; but when it comes to giving news about disasters, the task is transferred to ministers and governors."

Defining this distribution of tasks as the "perception management of the state", Akşener said, "We would like to learn the reasons why our heroic soldiers who have carried out such operations with success so far, setting an example to the world in that regard, are now met with such a result."

"We would like to learn if the politics had its finger in this," said Akşener further and criticized Erdoğan for "trying to derive politics from a disaster by talking live to a martyr's mother during the AKP congress."

Criticizing President and AKP Chair Erdoğan further for talking live to the mother of a deceased security officer during the AKP rally, Akşener said, "Your duty is to keep those mothers' sons and daughters alive."

'He says, "The hall is packed"'

Referring to the Congress held one day after 13 security officers lost their lives in Gare, İYİ Party Chair also criticized Erdoğan for praising how crowded the conference hall was amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Akşener said: "He says, 'The hall is packed.' We will naturally ask you the following: If you are content that halls are packed, then, what sin did our shopkeepers and millions of citizens commit? How will you look at the face of our healthcare workers who have been struggling against the virus at the expense of being away from their families?

"Won't you feel ashamed at all. Or, will you say, as you did at your congresses, 'We don't stop, we keep grinning'?'"

Further in her speech, Akşener also criticized Erdoğan for calling the abducted people in Gare "captives". Noting that "the ones administering the state must watch their words," Akşener briefly said:

"Those administering the state cannot call our sons abducted by the terrorist organizations 'captives.' Have you ever heard that Israel, the US or other countries calling their abducted citizens 'captives'?

"Don't forget: You represent this state in the name of 83 million people. You need to fulfil your duty seriously and watch your words." (DŞ/SD)