Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın commented on the ongoing diploma row concerning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying “What are we expected to do? Should we make millions of copies it and deliver to people’s addresses?”
Kalın said that the discussion was brought up for certain purpose, which according to him is to have an anti-Erdoğan stance, something the presidential spokesman claimed to be trendy. “Copies of the diploma have been shared on websites and also with journalists. Our rector [of the Marmara University] made statements, as well. They have seen it’s a baseless [claim] themselves, but they have other concerns,” Kalın said.
The claim that Erdoğan does not have a degree have long been discussed in Turkey. The Marmara University in İstanbul released a copy of Erdoğan’s diploma after the claim, however the released diploma caused more doubts. The released diploma named “School of Business Administration” as the department Erdoğan graduated from, however Erdoğan previously wrote in his CV that he graduated from “Faculty of Economics and Commercial sciences. The released diploma can now be reached online from Marmara University’s website.
Twitter hashtags #DiplomasıDaSahte (His diploma is also fake), #HaniMişDiploma (Where is the diploma) and #YaDiplomaYaİstifa (Either [show the] diploma or resign!) have been becoming trending topics in Turkey and world lists recently.
Last Friday, Marmara Universirty rector Mehmet Emin Arat said in a written statement that Erdoğan was a graduate from the university and the allegations on the social media that Erdoğan does not actually have a degree were “unfair” and “baseless.”
“US should stop having relations with branches of the terrorist organization”
During his press statement on Wednesday, Kalın also addressed the United States’ (US) support for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, which is designated as “terrorist” by Turkey due to its links to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Referring to the recent terrorist attacks in Turkey, Kalın said “We are making a call to the United States of America, which declared support for us but has been collaborating with the Syrian offshoot of the separatist terror organization. If you are sincere about battling against terrorism, if you are on Turkey’s side, you should stop having relations with any branches of this organization.”