Hurriyet published an article by Murat Yetkin entitled 'Gül and Erdoğan once again.' "Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s words yesterday, Nov. 29, on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s vow to lift the immunities of 10 deputies in Parliament endorsed a discrepancy between them as two fellows in politics for many years," the article begins.
"Erdoğan had said Parliament should consider lifting the parliamentary immunities of nine deputies of the Kurdish problem-focused Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) – the 10th deputy being close to the group – for praising the attacks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK); some of them had had pictures as they embraced PKK militants (one of them wanted for killing soldiers) who had blocked a road to carry out their armed propaganda earlier this year in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border. Right after Erdoğan’s challenge, a number of ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) deputies submitted a petition to a parliamentary commission to make that real," the author writes.
"Gül made it clear that he thought lifting the immunities of BDP deputies would be like Turkey dragging itself into a “dead end” once again. He was pointing at the 1994 incident when five Kurdish-origin members of Parliament had been stripped of their immunity; three of them were later tried and put in prison, which did not help Turkey find a solution to its Kurdish problem. Gül also warned the BDP deputies to refrain from praising acts of terrorism, something he found “unacceptable", the article reads.
"Following the attempt to have local elections earlier, it will be yet another case of Erdoğan taking a step back from his political moves. There are indications that something similar might happen to his ambitious presidential system, which has been submitted to the Conciliation Commission. On his way back from Madrid on Nov. 27, he told journalists he found the checks and balances mechanism in the U.S. slowed down the president from achieving what he wanted; Erdoğan wants to see a president in Turkey who can take quicker decisions with less control. That will not make everyone happy in Turkey; Gül had his warning earlier on that, too," the author concludes.
