Deputy PM warns AKP rookies to ‘calm down’

Turkish deputy Prime Minister Arınç urges younger members of the ruling party AKP to ‘calm down’ after a row within the party over who will lead it after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s term
A row between the younger and the more experienced members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) over who will be the next chairman following Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s departure has become more visible in the run-up to the party’s extraordinary convention, where Erdoğan’s successor will be elected.

As debate heats up, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, one of the founders of the party, has openly warned what he called the party’s “adolescents” to “calm down” after public reactions against outgoing President Abdullah Gül, who signaled his return to the party on Aug. 11. “Adolescents making certain calculations based on fictitious values may harm the years-long fraternity among us. Everybody should assume a stance against these people, telling them that this is a shame,” Arınç said in an interview with private broadcaster, A Haber, Aug. 12.

He had previously made similar warnings to the party’s younger members that led to a quarrel between himself and Yalçın Akdoğan, one of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s top advisors, over the future of the AKP.

“If the need emerges for a new leader with charisma and power who is able to move the masses in the run up to the 2015 elections, then we are a dynamic party. We would designate our new executives and then go for an extraordinary congress,” Arınç added.

The AKP’s next extraordinary congress is set to be convened on Aug. 27, a day...