Davutoğlu challenges CHP leader on foreign policy, referendum

Davutoğlu, during an interview with the NTV news channel broadcast live on Tuesday, was reminded of the fact that CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu is planning on having talks with European Union officials during a visit to Brussels scheduled to take place following the Sept. 12 referendum.

The Foreign Ministry would be glad to see the main opposition leader visit Brussels, Davutoğlu noted first of all.

“If he [Kılıçdaroğlu] will be able to go to Brussels and criticize the constitutional package there as well and will be able to say there that ‘these articles are against the European Union,’ then let him say the same things in Ankara, in Tunceli and in İzmir, too,” Davutoğlu said.

“However, if he will not be able to say this in Brussels, then he should not say it in Turkey, either,” the minister added.

According to news reports, during the upcoming two-day visit to Brussels, Kılıçdaroğlu is expected to have discussions with EU officials particularly regarding the referendum campaign. Some reports suggested that Kılıçdaroğlu will tell EU officials that the government has put pressure on both businesspeople and the media during the campaign. The referendum on the constitutional reform package is not an issue for political debate, Davutoğlu argued. Domestic discussions on the process will pass in time, but the constitutional reform will remain, he said.

Calling on the Turkish people to display a clear attitude against the current Constitution, which is a legacy of the 1980 coup d’état, Davutoğlu said this mattered much for “international prestige.”

Last week, during a tour of the Central Anatolian province of Konya, aimed at garnering support for the reform package, the foreign minister made similar statements, saying that approval of the constitutional reform package would bring significant confidence to Turkey on the world stage and would confirm the EU candidate country’s commitment to universal democratic values.

Ankara pushes for legal definition of Mavi Marmara raid

The ongoing tension between Turkey and Israel in the wake of Israel’s May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine activists dead was also on Davutoğlu’s agenda during an interview on Tuesday.

As a matter of fact, Turkey’s demand for an apology from Israel and compensation for the victims’ families are also demands made by the international community, Davutoğlu said.

“Our citizens were massacred in international waters, and a legal situation emerged. The results of this legal situation need to be defined very clearly by the international community and Israel. This is our expectation,” he said.

A news article published on Sunday by Ynetnews, an English-language Israeli online news portal, cited remarks by a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official, saying, “The Turkish foreign minister and [Israeli] Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer drafted a preliminary apology letter during a secret meeting in Brussels, but the effort was thwarted by another senior Israeli minister.”

The reported remarks were apparently referring to a secret meeting held in late June between Davutoğlu and Eliezer, which seemingly caused a deep rift within the Israeli government. At the time, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted angrily to reports of a secret meeting that took place without his knowledge. He said the way in which the meeting had been arranged had damaged his relationship with Netanyahu and had undermined his authority. When reminded of claims that Lieberman’s objection was the reason preventing the release of the apology letter drafted in Brussels, Davutoğlu declined to comment, saying that it was an internal matter of another country.

“However, the leak of that meeting to the press hindered the process,” he added, saying that the course of affairs regarding Israeli-Turkish bilateral relations and the Middle East peace process more generally would have been much more positive if the meeting was not leaked to the press and if Israel had yielded to Turkey’s demands.