{"id":38239,"date":"2023-05-08T17:20:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T17:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/erdogan-accuses-opposition-of\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T17:24:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T17:24:00","slug":"erdogan-accuses-opposition-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/erdogan-accuses-opposition-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan accuses opposition of provocations ahead of tight Turkish vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ANKARA (Reuters) &#8211;     Turkey&#8217;s President Tayyip Erdogan accused the opposition on Monday of provoking disorder and siding with terrorists in a fiery speech days away from close and increasingly fractious elections.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan appeared to suggest his opponents had incited confrontations a day earlier when crowds threw stones at a key opposition figure in the eastern city of Erzurum, a stronghold of the president&#8217;s AK Party (AKP).<\/p>\n<p>Opinion polls suggest Erdogan faces the biggest electoral challenge of his career in presidential and parliamentary votes due on May 14.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, protesters threw stones at Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a member of the main opposition Republican People&#8217;s Party (CHP) who will be vice president if the opposition&#8217;s Kemal Kilicdaroglu wins the presidential vote.<\/p>\n<p>A day later, across the other side of Turkey during a rally in the western town of Edirne, Erdogan accused the opposition of being &#8220;pro-LGBT&#8221; and &#8220;siding with terrorists.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Analysts say he has been ramping up rhetoric in a bid to shore up his appeal among conservative and nationalist voters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They (the opposition) are trying to defame our cities shamelessly by making a scene with their own provocations,&#8221; Erdogan said, without making direct reference to the events in Erzurum.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are looking for a cover for their prospective defeat in the elections by provoking and insulting people,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu also accused the opposition of inciting the violence in Erzurum.<\/p>\n<p>Soylu said that Imamoglu&#8217;s wife had provoked the crowds by making a &#8216;V&#8217; sign at another rally last week &#8211; a gesture that he said referred to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People of Erzurum have high sensitivity on nationalism. If you go to these cities and provoke them over their sensitivities, then God forbid,&#8221; Soylu said in a live broadcast late on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Imamoglu held another rally on Monday, in the central city of Konya, another AKP stronghold.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They can throw stones at us, but we&#8217;ll respond with roses,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The agitators will learn their lesson from the nation at the ballot box first, then they will be tried in independent courts for their wrongdoings,&#8221; Imamoglu added.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Andrew Heavens)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/erdogan-accuses-opposition-of\/file-photo-turkish-president-erdogan-holds-an-election-rally-in-7\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470K7-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470K7-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANKARA (Reuters) &#8211; Turkey&#8217;s President Tayyip Erdogan accused the opposition on Monday of provoking disorder and siding with terrorists in a fiery speech days away from close and increasingly fractious elections. Erdogan appeared to suggest his opponents had incited confrontations a day earlier when crowds threw stones at a key opposition figure in the eastern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":38240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-top-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470K7-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38241,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38239\/revisions\/38241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}