ANKARA
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said Tuesday that Turkey's opposition parties are acting arm-in-arm against the new security bill being debated in parliament and formed a front to protect the status quo.
"You see how they turned the parliament into a place of protest. You see how they established a status quo front," he said.
He made the remarks during a district advisory council meeting of the Justice and Development Party at the Yunus Emre Cultural Center in Ankara.
Akdogan was referring to the heated debates in the Turkish parliament since debates on the new internal security bill began last Tuesday, and the objection and protests against the bill by the main three opposition parties – the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and Peoples' Democracy Party, or HDP.
Late on Saturday, thirteen deputies from the pro-Kurdish HDP covered their faces with masks and staged at a sit-in in front of the seat of the parliament speaker during the general assembly meeting on the security bill, and protested the work of the general assembly.
The deputy prime minister stated that the opposition normally cannot take the same stance on an issue, but are now united in their opposition to this bill.
"I am saying openly that tutelage circles and the parallel structure are behind this front," he said.
Akdogan argued that the opposition is uneasy about the bill "as they know well that Turkey's period of coups will be a thing of the past once the security reform package passes into law."
"We will never allow or accept any of them, no matter if they are shadow government structures or parallel state structures," he added.
The deputy premier emphasized that the security bill introduces security measures that will strengthen public order so as to spoil major plots against Turkey's stability. "That's why they are uneasy," he said.
"They are engaged in cooperation with different motives driven by different fears," he added.
Akdogan further pledged that the "tutelage, pro-coup and parallel mindset" in Turkey will come to an end, and only the national will, law and democracy will prevail.
The security bill came to the table following extensive rioting in Turkey last autumn. Protests in Turkey's southeastern provinces in October 2014 resulted in over 40 deaths that were sparked because of Turkish government not allegedly doing enough to save the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from the terrorist group Deash.
The reform package bill criminalizes participation in protests with covered faces and makes the possession of Molotov cocktails punishable with up to 5 years behind bars.
The government defends the measures brought by the security bill as in compliance with EU norms, while opposition parties reject it outright, saying it would erode freedoms and rights in the country.
Opposition parties promised that they would not allow this bill to pass, but they can only delay it until March, when the parliament takes a break ahead of the June 7 general elections.
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