Turkey opposition criticize new powers for intelligence agency

ANKARA 

Turkey's opposition leaders criticized a draft law that would give Turkeys intelligence agency more powers, during speeches at party group meetings Tuesday. 

Turkey's main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and MHP leader Devlet Bahceli said the draft law relating to the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) will lead to an "intelligence state". 

Under the draft law introduced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, the AK Party, the intelligence agency would gain broader powers to demand unrestricted access to the records of state institutions and private companies without a court order. 

"If the state is run by the means of intelligence, it would turn into authoritarian one," said Kilicdaroglu.

Bahceli approved of the decision to rescind a law that would have led to the restructuring of the country's top judicial body, after the constitutional court found the powers given to the Justice minister were unconstitutional. 

Bahceli also responded to an article published in the London Review of Books (LRB) that claimed Turkey had supplied chemical weapons to Syrian rebels for an attack in 2013, saying that the government should prevent defamation of Turkey. 

"Although we are an opposition party, we cannot believe in those claims regarding Turkish government supported the deadly chemical weapons attacks in neighbouring country Syria," Bahceli said.

Kilicdaroglu said his party supports reforms, independence, equality of women and men and supremacy of law – which he said the ruling party does not realize the importance of.

People's Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairman Ertugrul Kurkcu said: "In order to protect democracy, not only the Constitutional Court but all the political powers have to raise their voices."

englishnews@aa.com.tr