Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is set on Tuesday to challenge a statement by Turkish autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that he would resign if anyone were to reveal any documents proving allegations that he has money in offshore tax havens.
CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman Özgür Özel on Monday called on Erdoğan to watch the party group speech of CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Tuesday. “Tomorrow we should all listen very carefully to Kılıçdaroğlu’s address at the CHP group meeting, setting aside other plans for that day,” Özel wrote on his Twitter account on Monday.
His post came after Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ slammed Kılıçdaroğlu for accusing Erdoğan’s close circle of stashing cash in off-shore tax-havens. “If you fail to produce the relevant document or information it means you are a disreputable, ignoble, vile slanderer,” Bozdağ said on Monday, referring to Kılıçdaroğlu’s accusations that Erdoğan’s close circle had deposited money in off-shore tax havens.
CHP deputy Gürsel Tekin also said: “We will see it tomorrow: Follow Kılıçdaroğlu.”
“If Tayyip Erdoğan has a single penny abroad, he should prove it. If proven, I will not stay in this presidential post for even one more minute,” Erdoğan said on Sunday during a meeting in İstanbul.
Following Paradise Papers revelations that Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım’s sons had invested in tax-haven Malta, Kılıçdaroğlu in a speech on Nov. 21 asked questions of Erdoğan: “Dear Erdoğan, do you know that your children, your brother-in-law, the father-in-law of your [son], your brother and your former principal clerk have sent millions of dollars to a tax haven?”
“Dear Erdoğan, you speak well, influence people, play with all of their values, politicize all their values, trying by all means to stay in power. I am asking a simple question to you [Erdoğan]. Have your children sent a million dollars abroad?” Kılıçdaroğlu added.
Erdoğan on Friday filed a lawsuit against Kılıçdaroğlu for TL 1,5 million in non-pecuniary damages for insulting himself and his family.
