Turkey slams ‘politically motivated’ PACE statement

By Zuhal Demirci

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey slammed on Wednesday the “politically motivated” call by the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) for the postponement of the early presidential and parliamentary elections to be held June 24.

“This politically motivated statement of PACE’s monitoring committee is contrary to the most basic principles of sovereignty and democracy,” Hami Aksoy, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement released Wednesday.

In the statement, Aksoy said: “It [PACE] also ignores the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s decisions, which reflects our people’s will.”

His remarks came after PACE’s monitoring committee on Tuesday called on Turkey to postpone the June 24 early elections, claiming Turkey was not complying with EU criteria.

The Council of Europe urged Turkey to postpone its early elections because of its state of emergency.

Turkey declared a state of emergency for the first time on July 20, 2016, following the defeated coup by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Aksoy said: “In many countries, elections were held during the state of emergency. The latest example of this is the French elections held in 2017.”

Calling the PACE statement “biased”, he said it was a “new regrettable example of the double-standard approach towards Turkey”.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman added: “This approach, which enables Saleh Muslim, leader of PYD, the Syrian branch of PKK terror group, to deliver a speech under the umbrella of the PACE [...], does not have the authority to give a democracy lesson to our country.”