Ankara: Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday that Turkey is considering reinstating limited use of the death penalty if there is an agreement between political parties.
“If there is consensus with other political parties on this demand of the people ... limited arrangements can be made,” Yildirim said in a speech in Ankara.
He said it would not be used retroactively, but did not elaborate further.
Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004 as part of reforms introduced in its bid to join the European Union. It has not executed anyone since 1984.
But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had suggested Turkey could bring back the death penalty in the wake of the failed July coup.
And hundreds of people have chanted “we want the death penalty!” at government rallies.
But Brussels has warned any return could mean the end of Ankara’s talks to join the 28-member bloc.
Erdogan said at the weekend his government would ask parliament to consider reintroducing the death penalty to punish the plotters behind the coup bid.
His comments drew the ire of European politicians, including Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz who said it was “a cruel and inhumane form of punishment”.
The Council of Europe has also condemned any move to reinstate the death penalty, saying it was “incompatible with membership of the Council”.
Despite Erdogan’s comments. Yildirim told lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP): “I want it to be known that that this [death penalty] would not be applied retroactively.”
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli told his lawmakers that he was ready to support the AKP on the issue.
“Since there is a need for the death penalty and since our nation wants this ... there is no need to discuss this unnecessarily. If the AKP is ready, the MHP has always been ready,” Bahceli said.
Yildirim shrugged off the EU’s criticism on media freedoms, following the detentions of at least 13 senior staff members of an opposition newspaper.
He said Turkey wouldn’t be taught lessons by Europe, and the government would “protect press freedom until the end”.
Monday’s detentions of chief editor, columnists and a cartoonist at one of Turkey’s oldest newspapers, Cumhuriyet, sparked an international outcry, including from the US and the EU. European Parliament President Martin Schulz called the detentions on Twitter “yet another red line crossed against freedom of expression in Turkey”.
Referring to Schulz’s comments, Yildirim said Turkey wouldn’t give in to threats and argued that the issue of media freedoms was being used by the EU to try to limit Turkey’s steps in combating terror.
“Brother, we won’t take notice of your line. The nation draws the red line for us. What importance does your line have? We’ll draw a line over your line,” Yildirim said. “They keep putting press freedom in front of us whenever we take steps in combating terror.”
The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said the detentions follow an investigation into the left-leaning and secularist paper’s alleged support to the movement led by US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen — accused by the government of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt — as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
