Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş has said he is “repaying” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his accusation that he is a terrorist, the Diken news website reported on Monday.
“Turkey is a state of law. The person you mentioned [Selahattin Demirtaş] is a terrorist. He is such a terrorist that he made all my Kurdish brothers take to the streets and then got these 53 Kurdish brothers murdered by some other Kurds. This is only one of the crimes he committed. There are many other similar ones,” Erdoğan had said during a press conference after the G20 summit in Hamburg on Saturday.
“First of all, I would like to ‘repay’ the insult that you made to the will of millions by way of me,” said Demirtaş in an open letter to Erdoğan, adding: “From another angle, I would like to ‘thank’ you for your confession. You have saved us from the burden of proving that the process operating under the name of the judiciary has nothing to do with the judiciary and that the verdict was given by you in person.”
“I would like to express my gratitude to you for making all judicial processes meaningless and unnecessary by declaring me a terrorist and saying I have had 54 people killed before my trial even starts.”
“I would like you know that I do not fear anyone except Allah. I will not fall into the cheapness of begging for mercy from you and those the oppressors at your disposal. I will not accept dishonor and submission even if I know that the rest of my life will be spent in prison,” said Demirtaş in the last part of his letter to Erdoğan.
The HDP condemned Erdoğan’s remarks about Demirtaş in a statement on Saturday.
“We condemn and protest this statement by Erdoğan in the strongest manner possible. History will tell who the terrorist is. We would like to share with the public our determination to hold the AKP [Justice and Development Party] chairperson accountable for his abovementioned arrogant words – in both the political sphere and in the field of international law,” said the statement.
Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also criticized Erdoğan for his accusations against Demirtaş and said Erdoğan was labeling everyone as a terrorist and considering himself to be the judiciary.