Turkey lashes out at European Parliament report urging EU sanctions on justice minister
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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Wednesday rejected a report by the European Parliament that called for possible sanctions on the country’s justice minister and other officials it accuses of violating human rights and freedoms.
The annual report approved in a plenary session earlier in the day, urges the European Union to consider freezing the assets of Turkish officials, including Akin Gurlek — the former Istanbul chief public prosecutor who was promoted to justice minister earlier this year.
The parliament’s report portrayed Gurlek as a key actor “in the state’s repressive machinery,” maintaining that his promotion was an indication “that throughout his career he has always been a political actor following a political agenda.”
In a strongly-worded statement, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry rejected the report, accusing it of unfairly targeting the justice minister.
“We categorically reject the report’s distortion of legal processes conducted by the independent Turkish judiciary and its targeting of our Minister of Justice with baseless accusations,” the statement read.
As Istanbul chief prosecutor, Gurlek presided over high‑profile trials against several members of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party or CHP — legal proceedings that the opposition has long denounced as politically motivated.
Hundreds of officials from CHP‑run municipalities have been arrested in corruption probes. Among them was Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — widely viewed as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief rival — who was arrested last year.
More recently, a court order deposed CHP’s leader, Ozgur Ozel, from his post, replacing him with his largely unpopular predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Critics denounced the move as a government attempt to neutralize the opposition.
Erdogan’s government however, insists that the judiciary acts independently.
It was unclear whether EU officials would want to spark Ankara’s ire by sanctioning a top government official. Turkey is a key EU partner in containing migration and an important NATO ally.
The European Parliament’s annual reports aim to assess Turkey’s progress in its EU accession negotiations which have stalled over concerns about its democratic backsliding.