Erdogan accuses Russia of black box 'propaganda show'

ANKARA

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Russia of making “propaganda shows” with a black box recovered from its downed SU-24 warplane.

“It was stated that the black box was opened, but the information was unreadable due to the destruction,” Erdogan said on Wednesday while addressing to the mukhtars, village and neighborhood headmen at the presidential complex in Ankara.

“We did not have the slightest doubts on the subject, because our information was clear and solid,” the president said.

“At a time when all the world has accepted Turkey’s rightfulness, these disingenuous propaganda shows do not have any meaning beyond further embarrassing those who seek help from them,” Erdogan said.

Russia opened the black box of the jet – which was shot down by Turkey on Nov. 24 – live on TV earlier this week.

However, the Russian authorities said they were unable to retrieve data from the flight recorder as 13 of the device’s 16 microchips had been destroyed and the remaining three were heavily damaged.

- "Parliament can no longer remain indifferent to Presidential system demands"

Speaking about a possible change to a presidential system of government in Turkey, Erdogan said parliament first and then the Turkish people were the “decision makers”.

However, Erdogan said he believed that parliament and political parties represented there, “can no longer remain indifferent” to this issue, due to the “clear and strong demand from the people”.

Erdogan said that world’s most developed countries were ruled by presidential systems: “That means here is a characteristic. If so, why are we afraid of that, why do we refrain from, why do we skip away?”

The ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has sought to turn Turkey from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential state since Erdogan – a party co-founder and former prime minister – became president on Aug. 10, 2014.

Although it regained its parliamentary majority in Nov. 1, general elections, AK Party appears to be 13 seats short of the number (330) needed to push through a referendum on constitutional reform.