Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Tuesday for recent remarks to German Focus magazine warning tourists against travel to Turkey and said that “he will pay the price.”
Speaking during a Justice and Development Party (AKP) Trabzon provincial meeting on Tuesday, Erdoğan targeted Kılıçdaroğlu for warning German tourists not to travel to Turkey due to security reasons.
“Those who are in cooperation with terror groups will pay for it. Those who are in cooperation even with the devil, they will pay the price, too. When they say ‘Of course not! Everyone in Turkey is under the state’s security,’ then, they will be respected,” he said.
On Saturday, Kılıçdaroğlu told German Focus Magazine that there is no safety guarantee for anyone in Turkey, underlining that it was not safe for Germans to travel to the country.
Kılıçdaroğlu said, “I consider it completely inappropriate to designate German journalists or other citizens who come to Turkey for professional reasons as spies.”
Criticizing the arrest of journalists in Turkey, Kılıçdaroğlu said he also feared being arrested and hauled before a court after he completed a 25-day walk, the March of Justice, from Ankara to İstanbul in protest of the arrest of CHP deputy and former journalist Enis Berberoğlu.
During the CHP’s March of Justice, Erdoğan had also implied that Kılıçdaroğlu could be detained or brought before a court to testify for holding the march.
