Turkish Prime Minister slams opposition over Hitler

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed the Republican People’s Party (CHP) over its strict opposition to the education bill and likened its world-view to that of Hitler and Mussolini, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

In response to the CHP’s accusations that his rule resembled that of the Nazis, Erdoğan said: “If the CHP chairman is looking for a fellow of Hitler, he should examine the CHP history that he is so proud of,” alluding to former CHP leader İsmet İnönü, who was President during the Second World War.

Erdoğan was speaking at his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) weekly parliamentary group meeting. He also displayed two front pages from the Daily Cumhuriyet, one from 1932 and the other from 1941, which featured stories about Turkey’s good relations at the time with Germany and Italy.

He also recalled a decree signed by İnönü, charging a government delegation to visit Germany in 1939 to attend Hitler’s 50th birthday celebrations.

In further remarks, Erdoğan commended his lawmakers for passing the education bill introducing Quran courses at schools and reopening the secondary level of imam hatip schools. He compared the bill to the restoration of Arab-language calls to prayer in 1950 by then Prime Minister Adnan Menderes.

Erdoğan hailed the education bill for increasing the mandatory educational term from 8 to 12 years with three separate four-year terms, indicating that the most important mark of the “February 28” process - 8-year uninterrupted education – had been removed with the law. “You have removed the most important, most serious and the last mark of February 28 with the bill you approved on Friday. Democracy and the national will defeated the status quo,” he said.