Turkey: Main opposition leader decries “lies fabricated by the government”

Main opposition leader in Turkey defied a defamation campaign by the ruling block over his party’s alleged support for terrorism.

On Monday, the investigation of an attack by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) that killed a police officer identified one of the assailants who was also killed as Dilsah Ercan, a former journalist who was listed in a CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) human rights report about jailed journalists published ten years ago. 

Many from the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) including the President Tayyip Erdogan claimed that the report was an evidence showing CHP’s support for “terrorism”   

"No matter which terrorist you follow, you end up reaching the HDP, the CHP, journalists, politicians, NGO representatives, or Western countries,” Tayyip Erdogan said. In a televised interview, Erdogan went as far as accusing the CHP of being a “national security problem.”

But PKK on Thursday wiped down AKP’s claims in a statement that denied the attack was carried out by Dilsah Ercan, nullifying the propaganda that CHP supported “terrorism”

After PKK’s statement, many in CHP decried the “lies fabricated by the government.”

CHP Chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu lambasted the “dirty propaganda” by President Erdogan and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu urging the prosecutor to publish the DNA report of the assailant, in a series of Twitter posts. 

“I know what you’ve been up to for two days. You deliberately lied. I'm calling out to the Attorney General, don't try to hide that file, we know the truth… Aren't you ashamed!” Kilicdaroglu said.

The PKK has been waging a war against the Turkish state for Kurdish rights since 1984. It is regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.