Turkey's incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shamed his main opponent in the May 14 election, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, on Friday for accusing Russia of interference in the republic's election campaign.
"Mr. Kemal is accusing Russia of allegedly directing the elections in Turkey. Shame on you. What would you say if I told you that the US, France, the FRG, and Britain are interfering in the Turkish elections?" - Erdogan said at a rally in Istanbul. The program was broadcasted by TRT TV channel.
The Turkish leader called Western countries "liars." "I have met with them for 20 years, you cannot know them better than I do. I have sat at the same table with them, they are liars," Erdogan stressed.
On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu posted a message in Russian on Twitter, in which he urged Moscow not to interfere in the upcoming May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections in the republic. He claimed that Russia was behind some "montages, plots and recordings" that were previously revealed in Turkey. The politician did not explain what he meant by this.
The opposition leader told Reuters on Friday that he had evidence of Russian involvement in spreading false information about candidates in the run-up to the election. "If we did not have concrete evidence, I would not have tweeted about it. We consider it unacceptable for another country to interfere in the electoral process in Turkey for the benefit of any political party. I wanted the whole world to know about it, that's why I made a relevant post on Twitter," he said.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov strongly denied rumors of possible Moscow interference in the Turkish elections, stressing that such information is spread by liars. In his opinion, Kilicdaroglu "should remember the story of the Americans," who "spent tens of millions of dollars on an investigation and then came to the conclusion that there was no interference."
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS