Turkey's Erdogan vows to 'liquidate' treachery at home and abroad

Reuters via Yahoo ^ | Jonny Hogg and Gulsen Solaker

[wetphoenix]

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday local elections had given him a mandate to "liquidate" the enemies he sees as contriving a corruption scandal and would go after their international activities and sources of funding.

In his first parliamentary speech since his ruling AK Party dominated March 30 municipal polls, Erdogan said "traitors" responsible for a stream of graft allegations and the illegal tapping of thousands of phones would be brought to account.

Erdogan accuses Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally now based in the United States, of orchestrating the graft scandal to undermine him. Gulen's Hizmet network claims millions of followers and holds influence in the police and judiciary.

Erdogan has accused the movement of running a "parallel state", spying on thousands of government officials over years and leaking manipulated recordings in a bid to unseat him ahead of last month's elections.

"March 30 is the day when the page was turned on tutelage, when the monuments of hubris were felled, and the privileges (of an elite) were lost forever," Erdogan said.

"The nation gave us a mandate for the liquidation of the parallel state. We will not have the slightest hesitation. We shall never forget the betrayal," he said.

He said the government would follow up on what he called the network's international links and investigate all "illegally collected monies and donations".

[Jimmy Valentine]

Erdogan is going for a “Ceausescu”

[WilliamofCarmichael]

From an earlier demonstration against Erdogan's AKP, Islamism, and sharia law. The opposition continues.

Source: Thread: Huge rally for Turkish secularism

Erdogan's AKP no longer supported by the fundamentalist Gulen Movement based here in Pennsylvania.