ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday the main opposition party was seeking to cover up its own mistakes and deceive people with “theatrics”, in his first comments on the detention of Istanbul’s mayor. “We have neither the time to waste on pointless debates nor stacks of money to recklessly throw around,” […]
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Erdogan dismisses as ‘theatrics’ criticism of Istanbul mayor detention
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ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday the main opposition party was seeking to cover up its own mistakes and deceive people with “theatrics”, in his first comments on the detention of Istanbul’s mayor.
“We have neither the time to waste on pointless debates nor stacks of money to recklessly throw around,” Erdogan said in an address in Ankara, a day after Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, his main political rival, was detained.
The Republican People’s Party’s issues “are not the country’s issues, but the issues of a handful of opportunists in their headquarters,” he said. “We have no time to waste on the opposition’s theatrics.”
(Reporting by Canan Sevgili and Huseyin Hayatsever; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Andrew Heavens)