Erdogan says nobody can conduct coup in Turkey

Turkey’s history of coups will be a thing of the past, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday while visiting an island which witnessed detentions and trials of the country’s first deposed government by a military coup in the early 1960s.

“No one can stage a coup [again] in this country as [Turkey] gets stronger and as we gain power. The whole point is that” the president vowed during a visit to Yassiada island, one of the nine Princes’ Islands off the southeast coast of Istanbul in the Marmara Sea.

On May 27, 1960, the Turkish army overthrew the country’s first democratically-elected Democrat Party (DP) government, the first of a series of military interventions in the country.

Following the coup, the DP seniors were jailed and put on trial by the military junta on the island. In 1961  toppled Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan were executed by the junta on the nearby Imrali island.

As Erdogan attaches great importance to the island’s symbolic stance there has been a development project on the island for some time, turning an almost empty island to a bustling place with buildings including a 125-room hotel, bungalows, 600-seater conference hall, mosque, museum, cafes, and restaurants.

Renamed as Freedom and Democracy Island, it will be inaugurated by the end of the year.

Speaking to media representatives, Erdogan emphasized the island would no longer be recalled for the executions.

“It will be referred to as Democracy and Freedom. We will tell the visitors a prime minister and two ministers were hanged there so that they can understand the mentality of Republican People’s Party (CHP),” he said, referring to the link between the then opposition party and the current one.

The president called on Istanbulites to “give a lesson” to CHP during the rerun of the mayoral election which is scheduled to take place on June 23.

Following CHP’s narrowly-won mayorship on March 31, the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) decided to rerun the mayoral election in Istanbul on the grounds that some ballot box officials were not public servants as required by regulations.

Erdogan added that the island’s renovation was aimed at giving a message to what he claims to be coup supporters, referring to the opposition CHP.

“Look at the place where you conducted [a] coup, we have changed it to all a bed of roses. This [project] reveals the difference [between the CHP mentality and AKP],” the president declared.

According to Erdogan, there are still people inside and outside the country eager to stage coups.

“In Turkey, you see people who have still been talking about economy etcetera. They have still been trying to do something. Please God, we will not let them have this opportunity. They work on how to create chaos in Turkey as it heads to [Istanbul’s rerun] elections,” Erdogan further claimed.

Ahead of the March 31 local election Erdogan, the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) repeatedly accused opposition parties of being pro-terror and of being supported by terrorist groups.

He used the term alliance of dishonor, to denounce the Nation Alliance, which was formed by opposition parties to run in the elections against AKP.

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from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/05/27/erdogan-says-nobody-can-conduct-coup-in-turkey/