"It is clear that there is parity"
CHP Chairman Özgür Özel said, "Expecting help from the cancellation of the diploma is nothing more than the helplessness of those who govern this country. It shows how much they fear Ekrem İmamoğlu and how valuable the pre-election process we are conducting is. It shows how Tayyip Erdoğan fears his opponent and is trying to eliminate his opponent."
According to DHA, CHP Chairman Özgür Özel visited Labor Party Chairman Seyit Aslan at the party headquarters. The closed-door meeting lasted about 1 hour. Özel and Aslan made a joint statement after the meeting.
Özgür Özel stated that he informed Seyit Aslan about the pre-election processes and said, "As in other political party visits, we exchanged views on this process where politics is being designed by a convenient and obedient apparatus in the judiciary, where the opposition is being suppressed, where civil society organizations are being silenced and where no one in Turkey can speak, only politicians can speak and only the agendas desired by the ruling party are being discussed. From now on, we confirmed our consensus on coming together and working together against the pressures of the ruling party and on bringing the demands of the people and the nation to the agenda in the Parliament."
"LET HIM ASSESS HIS OWN STATE"Responding to journalists' questions, Özel said the following regarding the statement of Antalya Deputy Serap Yazıcı Özbudun, who switched from the Future Party to the AK Party, saying, "There is a tissue incompatibility between me and the CHP, I rejected the CHP": "Serap Hanım said 'Tissue incompatibility'. If we were to do a tissue test on the seat she was sitting on, if a tissue sample was taken, we would be able to determine her identity from there. Not that much time has passed yet. If we were to send the tissues she left there to the Forensic Medicine, if Serap Hanım got into her own car, asked my deputy, and came and said, 'I want to join the Republican People's Party', and we told her, 'Your party has a group, you are a member of the group. We have worked hard so that that group would not be relegated, we have given you deputies. It would not be right for that group to get into trouble. If you were an independent deputy and had the intention of going to the AK Party, we would have suggested that you come to us. But we suggest that you stay in your group.' She knows that we said, 'Your party has a group, you are a member of the group.' She cannot deny our approach on this issue anyway. He had a disagreement. Someone who calls the chairman of the party he joined a 'One-man' and the administration and system of the country a 'One-man regime' has no disagreement with Erdoğan, no disagreement with the AK Party, but with us, right? I am not telling the will of the late Özbudun, 'Serap, I will not be able to see this regime improve, but I hope you will. Fight against it. Fight for Turkey to return to democracy', but Ms. Serap told it to all of us. She explained it one by one, expressed it to our friends, shared it. She said, 'We will fight to save Turkey from the one-man regime', and just last week she welcomed us to the Future Party delegation we went to, saw us off, talked about so many things inside, witnessed the confidential conversations inside, and then went to the AK Party and joined in 11 or 14 hours. She has a disagreement with the CHP. What more can I say? "I guess after such a career, it was Serap Hanım's fate to bring politics to this point, to such a debatable point in Turkey, to reach the peak of causing the political institution to lose its reputation. In other words, she is causing the political institution to lose as a whole. Let her judge the situation she has fallen into herself," she said.
Responding to criticisms by AK Party Spokesperson Ömer Çelik on the grounds that he targeted the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), Özel said, "We neither interfere with the business of the Turkish Armed Forces nor do we meddle in it. After remaining silent for 8 days and being attacked by certain groups for 8 days, a person who swore an oath in front of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, shook his hand, asked how he was, received his greeting, and smiled at him in the Turkish Armed Forces, they were told to 'Start an investigation' and were targeted. Young lieutenants were dismissed from the army because they said 'We are Mustafa Kemal's soldiers'. He mobbed the head of the commission that put a restriction on the dismissal, exiled him, and tried to put him under the command of another army. He was forced to resign, and he resigned honorably. He did not surrender to this process. I say nothing to the Chief of General Staff, or to the Minister of National Defense. I am stating what I hear and know. Who is carrying out this process, who is doing this mobbing, who is being fanned with anger? I know that you have made an effort for this. I have mentioned their names too. We do not interfere with the Turkish Armed Forces' business, nor will we interfere with it. But those who interfered in it and its business have brought the country to this state. If you look at the command echelon of the Turkish Armed Forces, 8 out of 9 admirals and 17 out of 20 generals are FETÖ members, who signed under them until they rose there, you will see who meddled in the TAF's business and who did. We also saw how they meddled and put pressure on the Turkish Armed Forces, who said 'We are Mustafa Kemal's soldiers' on a subject that should never be discussed. We have endless respect for the members of the Turkish Armed Forces. We have endless respect for the institutional structure of the TAF. But of course we have something to say to those who turned a blind eye to this decision, to those who mobbed the person who wrote the commentary game there," he explained.
"IT IS CLEAR THAT THERE IS EQUALITY"Özel gave the following answer to the question regarding the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's request for documents regarding Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu's diploma:
"When the person who governs the country has a controversial diploma, starting such a debate and knowing what the outcome will be; because it is clear that there is equivalence, it is clear that it happened on that date. All the documents have been made, there is no special procedure for each person. Istanbul University has given a newspaper advertisement, everyone has applied. Those who were there a year ago have already left. Hoping for help from the cancellation of that diploma when hundreds of people are in the same situation is nothing but the helplessness of those who govern this country. It shows how much they are afraid of Ekrem İmamoğlu. It shows how valuable the pre-election process we are conducting is. It shows how Tayyip Erdoğan is afraid of his opponent, how he is trying to eliminate his opponent. Apart from this, if there is a political mind that governs the AK Party, they would probably appreciate the administrators who have followed the AK Party in the past and know its past. It would not be such an amateur job. This boomerang will come back and hit Erdoğan. Erdoğan does not have a diploma, Erdoğan does not have school friends, he is not being taught a lesson. "The only lecturer who gave this, he made him a metropolitan municipality mayoral candidate for Muğla, he was a member of parliament in the previous term; apart from him, no one said 'I gave this lesson', no one saw him in the lesson, no one saw him in the cram school, no one saw him in the amphitheater, not a single photo with his school friends. If there is, let's see him take a photo with his school friends, classmates in the amphitheater. Let's see him give an iftar to his university friends this Ramadan. You too can ask his university friends about their school memories at the door. That's why I have increasing concerns about the country in such an amateurishly conducted politics, since those who govern the AK Party are also governing the country."
When asked, "Do you expect a cancellation decision at the end of the process?" Özel said, "No; what will it be canceled for? Will what exists be destroyed? A diploma given 31 years ago, courses passed. The university announced it, said, 'Come and apply to me', and accepted the application. If someone committed a murder 31 years ago, that murder would be legally eliminated due to the statute of limitations. In other words, if there is a process in which Ekrem İmamoğlu was a victim, something needs to be done about those who caused that victimization. There is an extremely transparent process. There is no personal fault anywhere, there is no application specific to the person. They will not earn a living from this. If there was, there would be a discussion about Erdoğan's diploma."
The Chairman of the Labor Party, Seyit Aslan, also said, "The President is talking about a new Turkey where the judicial stick is waved at all opposition, a new Turkey where strikes are banned. They are talking about a process where they are taking up the judicial stick again. We do not and will not accept such a new Turkey."
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