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Erdoğan Plays Race Card
With the campaign ahead of next months constitutional reform referendum heating up, the debates between the two main leaders are taking an ever-more tangential turn, with the latest argument now centering on the politicians ancestries.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan created fresh controversy over the weekend at a party rally in the southeastern province of Gaziantep when he questioned the ancestry of his main political rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, leader Kılıçdaroğlu is from Tunceli, an eastern Anatolian province that is predominantly inhabited by Kurds and Alevis. Mr. Erdoğan has talked about my mother and my father. Now, in a speech in Gaziantep, he even questioned my kin, Kılıçdaroğlu said Monday, adding that he was proud of his ancestry and his family. I have a suggestion to Mr. Recep. If he wants to learn about my family, then he can examine the state records. But if he is so curious about peoples ancestry, he may as well come and measure my skull. I would not mind it. Measuring skull was an old custom among ultra-nationalists to prove ones roots of pure Turkishness. Posted by: tipper 2010-08-17 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=303563 |