“Yesterday they published a play that they have montaged and dubbed themselves. What has been done is a vile attack against the prime minister of Turkey,” he said.
The fresh wiretap leaked into the Internet Feb. 24 containing four phone conversations between Erdoğan and his son dating back to Dec. 17, the day when massive graft raids were conducted by the police.
“I was making calls for weeks. I said: Publish everything you have, disclose whatever you’ve got. And they go and make an immoral montage and publish it. But even fabricating has morals and decency,” Erdoğan said, announcing that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would use the same technology and publish similar tapes featuring opposition leaders.
He also accused the opposition of opportunism after both the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) held extraordinary meetings over the leaked recordings. “Both the executive board of the CHP and MHP held extraordinary meetings. Why? Because they [are thinking] about how to take advantage of the montage. We can’t get it from the ballot box, and no coup is happening. Maybe we can do it thanks to [the help] from across the ocean,” he said, visibly referring to U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whom he has repeatedly accused of orchestrating the probes.
The voice recordings have sent shockwaves through Turkish politics, prompting the Prime Minister’s Office to issue a statement denouncing a "manipulation" and calls from the main opposition CHP for resignation.
On Feb. 25, the MHP joined the CHP’s call for the government’s resignation, with its leader Devlet Bahçeli describing the recordings as “mindblowing.”
“It has been reported that Prime Minister Erdoğan called his son Bilal asking him to gather with his brother Burak, uncle Mustafa and brother-in-law Berat to get rid of all the stolen money as soon as possible from his house. It is understood that the prime minister urgently and insistently asked for 2.2 billion [Turkish Lira] of dirty money hidden in different addresses to be dispersed,” Bahçeli said during his party’s group meeting in Ankara.
“If those conversations are true and nothing has been added, then it will be impossible to speak about the credibility, the humanity and, worse, the morality of the person in the position of prime minister,” he added.
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