02 March 2016•Update: 04 March 2016
ANKARA
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Wednesday said an opposition party leader was plotting against the country and collaborating with terrorists to "drag Turkey into chaos".
"Their business is in no way the country’s peace and tranquility, but on the contrary, dragging Turkey into chaos (and) collaborating with terrorists," Davutoglu said in Ankara, when asked about the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) leader’s call for a march in Diyarbakir province.
"We do not allow [this]. I’m saying it again," Davutoglu told a joint news conference alongside Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Omer Soyer Kalyoncu.
HDP co-chair, Selahattin Demirtas, called on Monday for residents of Diyarbakir to march to Sur to protest a curfew imposed on the district amid security force operations against the terrorist PKK organization.
Davutoglu insisted that "the necessary work [in the region] will be carried out until there are no more armed individuals."
Diyarbakir governorship announced Wednesday that security precautions have been tightened in Turkey’s southeastern provinces where anti-PKK operations are ongoing.
Turkey's southeast has been the scene of significant military operations since December against the terrorist PKK group, which renewed its armed campaign against the Turkish state in late July 2015.
Since then, more than 280 security forces personnel have been martyred and thousands of PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
Constitutional Court decision
Davutoglu said the Constitutional Court’s decision on releasing two journalists charged with espionage was “an open intervention to the trial” of the duo.
Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, senior journalists at the Cumhuriyet newspaper, were released from jail on Friday last week after the Constitutional Court decided their rights had been violated. They were arrested in November over allegations including espionage, attempting to overthrow the government and supporting terrorism.
The Turkish prime minister said there was a court decision for the journalists to be remanded in custody while in trial, and there was a trial in progress on accusations of espionage.
“At a time when the case is in progress, wrenching the base of the case and reflecting it as a free-press issue, is an open intervention to the case in progress,” Davutoglu said.
“An open espionage activity directed toward the Republic of Turkey, government and people is in question. The activity of misrepresentation of events is in question,” Davutoglu added.
Speaking about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s criticism towards the court decision, Davutoglu said: “Institutions may be subject to criticism in line with taken decisions,” just as politicians do.
Davutoglu said that Erdogan’s expressions regarding the issue needed to be evaluated in this context.
Turkey, TRNC sign water supply agreement
Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) signed on Wednesday an intergovernmental agreement on water supply and management.
Replying on comments coming from Greek Cypriot administration saying the agreement does not bind them, Davutoglu said it was important to say: “After all, the comment of a country which we do not recognize does not bind us.”
Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Omer Soyer Kalyoncu said that the agreement signed with Turkey would be of “vital importance” also for Greek Cypriots in a to-be established federal republic.
The water transfer project from Turkey to TRNC, known as the ‘Project of the Century’, was inaugurated in Oct. 2015.
Turkish Forestry and Water Affairs Minister Veysel Eroglu said at the time that Turkey had started to provide water to an 80-kilometer [50 mile] pipeline, which runs 250 meters (820 feet) under the Mediterranean Sea.
According to Eroglu, the project cost about 1.25 billion Turkish liras ($431 million).
