Former PM of Turkey to sue those asserting he had referred to ISIL as 'just a group of angry men'
Following the release of a video which has images of two men claimed to be Turkish soldiers being burnt by ISIL militants, previous statements of former prime minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoğlu were brought up again.
During the time when he was the prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu had referred to ISIL militants as just ‘angry young people.’
An announcement has been shared from the official Facebook account of Davutoğlu today (December 27). In the announcement, it is claimed that statements where ISIL militants are referred to as ‘just angry people’ have actually ‘never been used by former PM Davutoğlu’ and that Davutoğlu has been a subject of intentional defamation campaign.
According to the statement, legal action has been taken against those who referred to these phrases as statements of Davutoğlu.
In an interview with NTV more than a year ago, Davutoğlu had given the following statements: “The establishment that we call ISIL may seem like a radicalized terrorist structure in its essence; however, among the masses that join this structure are a large group of Turkmens. Also, there are Sunni Arabs and Kurds, too. This should be known! …Their previous anger and dissatisfaction, as well as, assaults and discriminations they had faced, created major reaction among a great crowd... If Sunni Arabs had not been isolated from the process in Iraq, as it was our peaceful suggestion, there would not have been a compilation of anger among Sunni members of places such as Mosul and Al-Anbar. Again, as we had suggested with friendly intentions, if Bashar Assad – representative of a %12 ethnic and sect-based minority – had not been given the authority to control all of Syria... things would not have been like this in Syria, either...”