'No one should pray for crisis in Turkey’

Turkey’s top institutions are not in a crisis but are instead working together in harmony, the prime minister said yesterday in his first comments on the fight over an attempt to probe top spy officials and his first remarks since emerging from follow-up digestive surgery.

“No one should harbor hopes of growing divisive and sinister seeds. No one should pray for a crisis. No one should dream of chaos and conflict. All institutions are working with harmony and motivation that has never before been seen in the history of the country,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday in an address to the youth branches of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) via video conference.

The event was his first public appearance since Feb. 10, the date of his second digestive-tract operation.

Erdogan’s words came nearly 10 days after a massive crisis erupted in the country after a specially authorized prosecutor called Hakan Fidan, chief of the National Intelligence Organization (M?T) and four other M?T officials to testify over an ongoing probe on the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), on the grounds that some M?T members who infiltrated the KCK had exceeded their authority in their duties.

Prosecutor Sadettin Sar?kaya and senior police officers carrying out the KCK operations were immediately removed from their office while the government increased the immunity of M?T personnel as a result of the call for testimony.

‘We won’t bow before anybody’

“The judiciary, police, army and the intelligence services are in complete coordination. They are devotedly doing their duties. Tarnishing institutions and trying to show them in disharmony will not bring any benefit to our country,” Erdogan said.

Recalling that the harmony and coordination among the institutions could be possible thanks to this government’s efforts through “silent revolution and transformation,” the prime minister said: “We will not permit illegitimacy in this country. We will never enslave those who have been elected under the appointed ones. We have always been sensitive toward the harmony and coordination between the executive, legislative and judicial branches and the institutions.”

Calling all columnists, intellectuals, the media and politicians to exercise common sense when interpreting such developments, Erdogan criticized those who were trying to suggest the AKP was in conflict with the people. “Those who are trying to do this will be ashamed.”

In an indirect reference to the alleged fight between the AKP and the Fethullah Gulen religious community, Erdogan said, “They will never bow before anyone as they are representing the will of the people.”



/Hurriyet Daily News/