20:18
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ISTANBUL: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey should consider bringing back the death penalty, a decade after Ankara abolished capital punishment as part of reforms aimed at European Union membership.
Political commentators accused Erdogan of populism ahead of the 2014 presidential election in which he is widely expected to run.
His comments, in a speech on Sunday, follow an upsurge in Kurdish militant violence which has raised pressure on the government to act over a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since it began 28 years ago.
“In the face of deaths, murders, if necessary the death penalty should be brought back to the table (for discussion),” Erdogan told a crowd. Turkey abolished the death penalty in peacetime in 2002 under reforms aimed at EU membership.
It was abolished totally in 2004, two years after Erdogan’s AK Party came to power.
Abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for EU entry. But Turkey’s progress towards EU membership has ground to a virtual halt in recent years amid opposition from France and Germany and Erdogan has become increasingly dismissive of the bloc, focusing instead on Turkey’s role as a regional power.
“Probably the premier’s staff, following the mood of the nation through frequent opinion polls, advised him that a pro-death penalty stance might help his presidential aspirations,” columnist Yusuf Kanli wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan has made several references to the death penalty this month, first raising the issue at an AK Party meeting where he said opinion polls showed strong support for reinstating it.
When capital punishment was abolished, separatist militant Abdullah Ocalan was on death row after being sentenced in 1999 as leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.
Political commentators accused Erdogan of populism ahead of the 2014 presidential election in which he is widely expected to run.
His comments, in a speech on Sunday, follow an upsurge in Kurdish militant violence which has raised pressure on the government to act over a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since it began 28 years ago.
“In the face of deaths, murders, if necessary the death penalty should be brought back to the table (for discussion),” Erdogan told a crowd. Turkey abolished the death penalty in peacetime in 2002 under reforms aimed at EU membership.
It was abolished totally in 2004, two years after Erdogan’s AK Party came to power.
Abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for EU entry. But Turkey’s progress towards EU membership has ground to a virtual halt in recent years amid opposition from France and Germany and Erdogan has become increasingly dismissive of the bloc, focusing instead on Turkey’s role as a regional power.
“Probably the premier’s staff, following the mood of the nation through frequent opinion polls, advised him that a pro-death penalty stance might help his presidential aspirations,” columnist Yusuf Kanli wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan has made several references to the death penalty this month, first raising the issue at an AK Party meeting where he said opinion polls showed strong support for reinstating it.
When capital punishment was abolished, separatist militant Abdullah Ocalan was on death row after being sentenced in 1999 as leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.
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