Nov 30 2017

Scuffle over Iran sanctions case stops business in Turkish parliament

Chaos broke out in the Turkish Parliament on Wednesday over high tensions relating to the prosecution of an Iranian-Turkish gold trader in the United States.

The session had to be halted after a scuffle erupted when opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputies said that the case had been closed in Turkey for political reasons and urged its re-opening.

Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül responded by accusing the opposition of being in the pocket of Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, the man the government accuses of having masterminded last year’s failed coup attempt:

What enthusiasm, what passion, what motivation brings you 10,000 kilometres away to a conspiracy case? By Pennsylvania’s side: I’m watching this with astonishment. You are not following the ongoing trial in Sincan of the murderers who bombed the Turkish Grand National Assembly, who martyred 250 of our citizens and wounded 2,000 more, and who murdered the republic and democracy, and it is right in front of us. In the name of Turkey, in the name of the CHP, this is a truly shameful situation.

At this, a fight broke out between members, leaving the parliament unable to continue operating for a while.