Senior Turkish politician: Erdogan must put to trial.
A senior member of Turkey’s opposition Democratic People’s Party said Monday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan should be prosecuted for his slow response to recent deadly earthquakes.
Ertugrul Korcçu, a senior member of the leftist People’s Democratic Party, told the Middle East Eye website that the government watched people die in the earthquake. “I believe that Erdogan should be tried in a democratic country for the deaths of tens of thousands of people,” said Korccu, who is the party’s honorary president.
This veteran politician, who spent 14 years in prison in the 70s and 80s, continued: “You can’t just blame negligence. “Turkey had resources, but the government and the army stopped.”
According to this report, at least 48,000 people have lost their lives in Turkey due to the earthquake.
Meanwhile, the President of Turkey said on Sunday that after the earthquake in the southern provinces, Turkey has mobilized all its institutions, forces, and resources for the affected areas and the country’s performance has been very fast.
Erdoğan said while visiting the earthquake-hit area of Samandagh in Hatay: “No one should doubt that all the facilities of the country and the nation have been mobilized for the earthquake area.”
He said: “We have mobilized the military, police, gendarmerie, health, and education specialists and all the forces of the relevant institutions and all our vehicles from airplanes to helicopters and ships for our earthquake victims.”
He further claimed: “No country can react faster than Turkey in the face of such a disaster in which the number of dead has reached 48,000, the number of injured has exceeded 115,000, and 50,000 buildings have been destroyed.
