ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - In a move toward greater power that has included a deadly crackdown on the Kurdish opposition, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday the time had come to change the constitution.
“There is a president with de facto power in the country, not a symbolic one,” Erdogan said in the Black Sea province of Rize.
“The president should conduct his duties for the nation directly, but within his authority. Whether one accepts it or not, Turkey’s administrative system has changed,” he said. “Now, what should be done is to update this de facto situation in the legal framework of the constitution,” the Hurriyet Daily reported him as saying.
Erdogan, 61, has been clawing his way to greater power ever since becoming president in 2014, after 11 years as prime minister.
After a setback in June, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that stands behind him failed to win the number of parliament seats that would allow it to railroad constitutional changes, Erdogan warned he was springing back – and getting his way.
“From now on, I’ll be there,” he said. “You won’t be able to cut my ties with my nation,” he added, explaining he will be on the political scene like never before.
Erdogan’s many critics, including the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) that rose against him – and won – in the elections, have warned that Erdogan is a dangerous man who is bent on dragging this NATO country down a dangerous path, away from democracy and toward authoritarian rule.
Erdogan’s latest move is part of a deadly political chess game in which the president wants for himself the powers of a king: the Ak Saray, or White Palace, he built for himself, has 1,000 rooms and was built at a reported cost of $350 million.
The election setback was a major blow to Erdogan’s oversized ambitions. But he brought them back on track by declaring a war on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the outlawed group that had been in two years of peace talks with the government.
After an Islamic State (ISIS) bombing in the city of Suruc in which 32 people were killed and after the PKK claimed responsibility for killing two Turkish officers, Erdogan declared a war on terror – but went mainly after the Kurds.
Turkish warplanes have carried out bombing raids against the PKK in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast, after nationwide sweeps in which hundreds were arrested. Turkish officials reportedly said early this week that 390 PKK members had been killed and 400 wounded.
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