“Statements by a political party leader during a parliamentary group meeting, saying, ‘You [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] failed to herd three pashas,' have been met with regret by the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] and legal proceedings have been initiated over these remarks,” the General Staff said in a statement posted to its website on Friday.
During a BDP parliamentary group meeting last Tuesday, Kışanak criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its leader for a botched airstrike that killed 34 villagers late last month. “You fail to herd three pashas, but you think that you can herd your people by deceiving them,” she said.
The Turkish military launched an airstrike on a group of 34 civilians who were smuggling goods across Turkey's border with Iraq on Dec. 28, after mistakenly identifying them as Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists. The government later acknowledged that the victims were smugglers, not terrorists. The military issued a statement saying the warplanes had targeted the group based on intelligence that suggested a group of armed terrorists would be heading towards the Turkish border to stage attacks on the military.
