Former CHP leader calls on PM Erdogan to share evidence

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should present his evidence revealing who was behind a sex tape that forced Republican People's Party (CHP) Antalya deputy Deniz Baykal to resign from his post as chairman of the party in 2010 instead of calling on Baykal to say that the Hizmet movement was implicated in the affair, Baykal said on Monday. The Hizmet movement has firmly rejected any links to the incident.

Speaking at his party's parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday, Erdoğan criticized the former leader of CHP for his silence over the issue of recordings and videos that are posted illegally on the Internet and called on Baykal to speak out against them. His criticism came after voice recordings allegedly belonged to Erdoğan appeared on video sharing website YouTube on Monday. Erdoğan said the voice recording which was posted on the Internet late on Monday of phone conversations reportedly between Erdoğan and his son Bilal in which the prime minister allegedly warns his son about cash stashed in several houses, was a "montage." Rejecting the recording as "completely false," the prime minister vowed in a statement to sue those who orchestrated this "dirty plot."

Erdoğan made this call saying that Baykal should speak out as he was once subjected to and was a victim of a similar plot before he resigned from his party in 2010.

Baykal, however, kept his stance over the issue and said he was mistaken in expecting a supportive attitude from him unless the claims by the prime minister about who is responsbile for the recroding of sex tape are proven true. Erdoğan blamed the Hizmet movement for the sex tape that forced Baykal to resign from the top post in CHP. When the sex tape first went public in 2010, Baykal rejected claims that Hizmet was involved in the incident.

“I am waiting for the prime minister to share his evidence on this issue before I talk about it,” Baykal said, refusing to put the blame on the Hizmet movement and calling on the prime minister to present evidence of his claims, if such evidence exists.

A video appeared on several news websites, apparently showing Baykal intimately involved with CHP Ankara deputy Nesrin Baytok in 2010, while Baykal was still the leader of the party. The longtime CHP leader heeded insistent calls from both members and supporters of his party and announced in May 11 of the same year that he decided to step down from his position.

During a televised press conference at the CHP headquarters, Baykal said the release of the video was a conspiracy against him.

Published on Today's Zaman, 25 February 2014, Tuesday