In a TV interview on Monday evening (May 22) on state-run TRT News, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged that a video shown at a major campaign rally in Istanbul on May 7 was in fact fabricated. The video had shown main opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with militants from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), presented as an opposition campaign video.
Ahead of the second-round presidential runoff this Sunday (May 28), Erdoğan was hosted on TRT yesterday evening for a sit-down interview with correspondent Abdülkadir Selvi. At one point during the interview, Erdoğan was asked by Selvi “How was this video recorded?”, referring to the clip shown at the president’s May 7 campaign rally. Admitting the video shown was fabricated, but still alleging PKK complicity in the Kılıçdaroğlu campaign, Erdoğan replied: “The CHP Chairman [Kılıçdaroğlu] has allied with the PKK terrorist organization. There are these videos of Kılıçdaroğlu shot in Kandil [a mountainous region in Iraq and Iran known for PKK activity]. And they released them; the ones where they say “Let’s go, let’s go”. You can say these are fake but PKK has endorsed them by circulating these videos.”
The Kurdish Workers Party, usually known as the PKK, is a Kurdish militant organization classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union that is most infamous for engaging in widespread guerilla activity and separatism in Turkey’s southeast throughout the 1990s. The group has long been a fixture in Turkey’s domestic political realm, with certain parties accusing others of complicity with the group as they attempt to shore up anti-PKK votes. While acknowledging that the videos shown at the campaign rally were fabricated, Erdoğan’s comments on Monday evening’s program insinuate that Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign had propagated such videos in order to garner support from Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
In the original campaign rally on May 7 at İstanbul’s Atatürk Airport, Erdoğan had shown a video with Kılıçdaroğlu saying “Let’s go together to the ballot box,” with an overlaid video of Kurdish militants chanting “Let’s go, let’s go.” As the video played, Erdoğan had told the crowd: “They are walking shoulder to shoulder with the PKK. Would my beloved fellow citizens vote for such a thing? Listen, this is extremely important.”
Prior to the appearance of the doctored video at Erdoğan’s rally, Kılıçdaroğlu had publicly warned the president’s campaign against the use of fabricated ‘deep-fake’ style videos after the opposition leader’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) received intelligence indicating that Erdoğan’s camp was planning such moves with the goal of tanking Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign prior to the May 14 polls.
In response to Erdoğan’s TV interview on Monday evening, Kılıçdaroğlu released the following statement:
Medyascope'u destekle. Medyascope'a abone ol.
Medyascope’u senin desteğin ayakta tutuyor. Hiçbir patronun, siyasi çıkarın güdümünde değiliz; hangi haberi yapacağımıza biz karar veriyoruz. Tıklanma uğruna değil, kamu yararına çalışıyoruz. Bağımsız gazeteciliğin sürmesi, sitenin açık kalması ve herkesin doğru bilgiye erişebilmesi senin desteğinle mümkün.
“They won’t be able to manipulate anyone in the second round. Everything has become clear as day. Young people will penalize Erdoğan for resorting to such fake and manipulative techniques. The election has now started over again. We’ll see you at the ballot box.” A later social media post from Kılıçdaroğlu referred to Erdoğan as “Fabricating impostor.”
Opposition figures from across Turkey voiced their condemnation of Erdoğan’s admission that the video was fake. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu released the following statement on Monday evening: “The president has admitted on live television that the videos shown at his campaign rally showing Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu were in fact fabricated. This campaign of slander, which is unbecoming of any Muslim, has been exposed. The morality and conscience of our nation will not allow for this kind of slander and conspiracy.”
