The time has come for unified and organised action to erase Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) from the political arena, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party co-chair Pervin Buldan said on Wednesday during a visit to earthquake survivors in Hatay.
Questioning how 40 billion dollars of earthquake tax had been spend over the last 20 years, Buldan addressed the President:
“This country, these people, this land, has no strength left to endure you even for a day, let alone for a year. No one will give you one more year as a reward. Because you will go. People will hold you accountable.”
Buldan was referring to a repeated request made by President Erdoğan to the public after the earthquakes hit, to give him one year to complete the construction of new residential builds. However, on Tuesday Erdoğan’s plea soon became a demand as he repeated the sentiment with a much clearer tone. “You will give me one year,” the President said.
Buldan went on to say that as rescue efforts came to an end in quake-hit cities, and debris removal operations began, the removal of bodies from under the rubble without disturbance of bodily integrity was both a religious and moral requirement.
“People are waiting for relatives to be removed from the rubble,” the HDP Co-Chair said.
“We witness construction equipment lined up to remove the debris today in the same cities where there was no emergency response or construction equipment to rescue people trapped under the rubble in those first days,” she added.
Buldan also warned that evidence of construction corruption will be destroyed in the government’s rush to remove debris.
