Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara will not change its anti-terrorism laws in order to meet European Union requirements, which are necessary in order to give the people of Turkey visa-free travel to the bloc.
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The Turkish president was speaking the day after the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, who had negotiated the deal, announced he was stepping down because of a rift with the president.
Critics argue that Erdogan has become increasingly authoritarian to the point of harming Turkey’s unity in pushing for a presidential system, and Turkey has been criticized for jailing journalists and dissidents.
Mr Davutoglu is widely expected to be replaced by an Erdogan ally who is unlikely to attempt an independent agenda.
The AKP’s Central Decision and Executive Board’s decision come after Davutoglu, who took over the party chairmanship after Erdogan was elected as president in 2014, has recently reshuffled around 15 provincial and district party heads.
Erdogan said: “We’ll go our way, you go yours”.
Well, despite this unfolding, he has confessed his desire to remain loyal to Erdogan emphasizing that not a single ay will he make negative utterances about him.
“Whoever the new PM will be, it is clear that it will mean more power over the government by the president”, said Ozgur Altug, chief economist at BGC partners in Istanbul.
The departure of Davutoglu, who had cut the migrant deal after months of negotiations, has sent ripples of concern through European capitals.
Still, the shake-up comes at a challenging time for Turkey, with Ankara battling Kurdish militants in the southeast and in Iraq, Islamist jihadists on the Syrian border as well as hosting 2.7 million refugees from the Syria war.
President Erdogan and Prime Minster Davutoglu met late Wednesday but reportedly failed to smooth over their disagreements. His relations with Erdogan deteriorated because of the president’s wish to switch to a presidential system as well as different stances on freedom of speech in Turkey.
Another part of the EU-Turkey deal had been to hold new talks on Turkish accession to the EU.
“In order to be strong, we need to rapidly present a presidential system which is the guarantee of stability and trust to the approval of the people”, Erdogan said.
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“The chancellor has worked very well until now with Turkish Prime Minister (Ahmet) Davutoglu and all Turkish representatives and we assume that this good and constructive cooperation will continue with the new Turkish prime minister”, German government spokesman Georg Streiter told reporters.
