* Photo: Anadolu Agency
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İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener spoke at the weekly group meeting of her party today (October 22). Referring to Turkey's Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria, Akşener raised concerns over the ambiguities in the US-Turkey agreement, emphasizing that there are yet questions to be clarified.
'This arrogance cannot be left unanswered'
Some highlights from Akşener's speech were as follows:
"After the operation was paused, US President [Donald Trump] said, 'They had to fight like kids at the schoolyard. They fought and I pulled them apart'. Dear [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan said, 'We don't regard this issue as our priority'. The President of the people doesn't regard an issue, for which my soldiers have fought at the cost of their blood, as his priority.
"I am not unfamiliar with such issues, Dear Erdoğan, It is not the first time that Turkey launches a cross-border operation. I also had my signature under the operation 'hammer' launched into northern Iraq.
"That operation lasted for four months. Quite a heavy blow was dealt to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). Neither did we host a guest from the US, nor the then US President could open his mouth to speak. Because they knew our determination. How come can a US President think that he can hurl all kinds of threats and insults. How come can he equate the PKK with Turkey!
"This arrogance cannot be left unanswered or covered up, you cannot call the ones who did it 'my friend', Dear Erdoğan. If the way that you walk up to the terrorist is locked up, then put a lock on the door of İncirlik [Air Base].
'We are concerned about the ambiguities'
"I hope that we won't lose what we have won in the field at the table. That's why, we will follow every step taken, including the [Erdoğan-Putin] meeting [in Sochi] today with a team highly experienced in state and diplomacy.
"We are also concerned that the ambiguities in the agreement signals a new delaying process There are still some questions not yet certain. Who will control the safe zone and how? What kind of contact will be established with Damascus government? Who will collect the weapons of terrorists?
'Safe zone is the entire Syria'
"Safe zone is, in fact, the entire Syria. The essential condition of regional stability is the territorial and political integrity of Syria. We have to do the necessary to ensure this stability.
'Over 8 million people without a job'
"How the unemployment has risen since we adopted Presidential Government System is apparent. Over our 8 million people, a million 100 thousand of whom are university graduates, are without a job. Unemployment in our cities has been increasing for the last 16 months.
"Our 2 million citizens have become unemployed in the last two months. The population of Adana is 2 million 200 thousand, which means that we have almost as many unemployed as the population of Adana. It means that almost two times more citizens of ours than the population of Sakarya have lost their jobs. For Erdoğan and his son-in-law, these are nothing, but numbers." (RT/SD)
