Erdogan says Turks voted for stability and the world must respect result

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the nation had voted for stability in a parliamentary election that saw the AK Party he founded win almost 50% of the vote, and said the world should respect the result. The Islamist-rooted AKP swept to an unexpected landslide victory on Sunday, returning Turkey to single-party rule in an outcome that will boost Erdogan’s power but may deepen social divisions. “The national will manifested itself on Nov. 1 in favour of stability,” Erdogan said in comments to reporters after praying at a mosque in Istanbul.

Now a party with some 50 percent in Turkey has attained power… This should be respected by the whole world, but I have not seen such maturity.

President Tayyip Erdogan

Erdogan said earlier the outcome was also a message to Kurdish insurgents in the restive south-east that violence could not coexist with democracy. Security forces have been battling militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the country’s predominantly Kurdish south-east in a renewed surge in violence since a ceasefire collapsed in July. Turkey is vital to Nato and the US as a forward operating airbase for their airstrikes against Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq.

Let’s be as one, be brothers and all be Turkey together.

President Erdogan

Politics Erdogan