CHP leader challenges PM Erdoğan on bank claims

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has challenged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, vowing to pay the latter’s attorney’s fee if he is willing to prove that he does not have eight Swiss bank accounts, as was claimed in a Wikileaks document back in 2010.

In remarks delivered before a CHP Party Assembly meeting on June 23, Kılıçdaroğlu focused on the various allegations that surfaced with the Dec. 17, 2013 corruption probe, which indicated the involvement of Erdoğan and his children in unprecedented levels of graft. He recalled how Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç confirmed at the time that the Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV), a charity NGO including Erdoğan’s son, Bilal Erdoğan, among its board members, had received $99,999,900 in aid from abroad between 2008 and 2012.

“Why doesn’t Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who objects to everything, speak about this issue? Look at those who have won tenders, they first put money into this [foundation]. Along with his son, Erdoğan is in the position of both ‘bribed’ and ‘briber,’” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

Afterward, the CHP leader read out a transcript of a recording of an apparent conversation between Erdoğan and his son Bilal, which appears to prove their involvement in corruption.

Kılıçdaroğlu linked the recordings to claims about Erdoğan’s alleged Swiss bank accounts. “If you don’t want to pay the attorney, just give this instruction: Give a petition to the Swiss authorities and request whether you have accounts in Swiss banks. I give you my word of honor, I will pay that...