EP Turkey rapporteur calls on Erdogan for stronger reform

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the Turkey rapporteur in the European Parliament, congratulated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his party's landslide victory in parliamentary elections but said the election win also brought great responsibility to the government to enact reforms, Today's Zaman reported.

"I congratulate Prime Minister Erdoğan and the [Justice and Development Party] AKP with this victory,” Oomen-Ruijten said in a statement released late on June 12, soon after unofficial results from the polls arrived. “At the same time this victory brings great responsibility to address the outstanding reforms, show full commitment to the accession process and the will to engage constructively with the European Union, as well as the capacity to build a strong and ambitious vision of Turkey's future capable of representing the entire Turkish society across political lines,” she said.

Erdoğan has promised to rewrite the Constitution, drafted during military rule, during his election campaign. Opposition parties also said they supported a new constitution, although it is not clear if their aspirations on how the new constitution should look like are reconcilable.

"I hope these issues will be tackled responsibly by all political parties in a spirit of consensus and compromise,” Oomen-Ruijten said. “The only way forward for uniting Turkish society on the basis of equal rights for every citizen is through political dialogue and concrete initiatives for reconciliation by peaceful means. This will bring Turkey closer to the European Union, which is in the interest of both Turkey and the EU."