TURKISH PARLIAMENT REJECTS PM PROBE MOTION

Agence France Presse — English
February 27, 2007 Tuesday 4:31 PM GMT

The Turkish parliament on Tuesday rejected a motion to launch
an investigation into Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his
Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu for alleged poor management of the
security forces.

The proposal filed by the main opposition Republican People’s Party
(CHP), was easily defeated in the parliament where Erdogan’s Justice
and Development Party (AKP) holds a comfortable two-thirds majority.

The CHP alleged that Erdogan failed to ensure the efficient functioning
of the interior ministry.

It accused Aksu of tolerating the appointments and arbitrary actions of
political cronies in the police force and of mismanaging the security
forces, allegedly resulting in a series of violent incidents over
the past four years.

The murders of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January and
Italian Roman Catholic priest Andrea Santoro last year, as well as
four suicide bombings in Istanbul in 2003, blamed on al-Qaeda, were
among the incidents mentioned.

Tensions between the AKP and the CHP have shot up ahead of presidential
elections in April and parliamentary elections in November.