Main opposition CHP leader tells his mayors to be alert after last week's attack on HDP office

Main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has warned his mayors after last week's attack on the HDP's İzmir office, saying they should be “prepared for similar provocations.” “I have told my mayor friends that provocations similar to the one in İzmir can happen anywhere,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

Wednesday June 23 2021 12:38 am

CHP chair Kılıçdaroğlu addresses his party's group meeting in parliament on June 22.

Duvar English

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said that he told his CHP mayors to be vigilant as attacks similar to one that targeted the office of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the Aegean province of İzmir “can happen anywhere.”

“I have told my mayor friends that provocations similar to the one in İzmir can happen anywhere. I told them to be prepared for provocations,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on June 22, as he addressed his party's group meeting in parliament.

“My biggest wish from you [as the mayors] is that you invite people to calmness. Let no one undertake provocations,” he said.

A man named Onur Gencer on June 17 stormed the HDP's İzmir office and shot dead 20-year-old Deniz Poyraz. The HDP said Poyraz had been covering a shift for her mother at the office.

Kılıçdaroğlu also criticized the authorities for granting Gencer a gun license, saying the assailant had been receiving psychiatric treatment since 2016.

“For a person to get a gun license, they need to get a clean bill of health at a full-fledged hospital. This person [assailant] has been getting a psychiatric treatment since 2016. How can you give a license to someone who has psychological problems?” Kılıçdaroğlu asked.

In his initial testimony to the police, the assailant was reported to have said that he received his gun license in May shortly after his application to a district police department.

The assailant's former colleagues said on June 18 that he should not have been granted a gun license as he was known to have anger management issues.

“He was always angry and had nonstop rage. He was constantly talking about getting a gun license," a colleague from his former job at the Kemalpaşa State Hospital told Gazete Duvar in an interview.

"I had said at the time that he should definitely not receive a license. I do not know what the criteria are but he was one of the people who should not have been granted a license," the colleague told Gazete Duvar.