Breaking News: Erdoğan defends Özlem Çerçioğlu with these words

AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is speaking at the program organized for his party's 24th anniversary.

Our Chairman and President Erdoğan is speaking at our party's 24th Anniversary Program… #24YılınHikayesi https://t.co/xFd8b7wcgU

— AK Parti (@Akparti) August 14, 2025

Aydın Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu, who resigned from the CHP, is also among those following the program. Erdoğan will pin her party badge.

Targeting CHP Chairman Özgür Özel and party members who reacted to Özlem Çerçioğlu's decision, Erdoğan said of Çerçioğlu: "We say 'get out of here' to those who attack the new members of the AK Party family in an immoral, dishonorable, and crude manner that tramples on all human values."

"TO THOSE WHO ATTACK THE NEW MEMBERS OF THE AK PARTY..."

The highlights of Erdoğan's speech are as follows:

"I would like to thank MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli, who showed great courtesy by sending a special flower arrangement today, as well as the other chairmen. Today, we are growing our party even further with new participants. I welcome all our friends who have joined us. We embrace them all with affection. I sincerely congratulate the mayors whose badges we will pin shortly. I say 'get out of here' to those who have been attacking the new members of the AK Party family since yesterday in an immoral, dishonorable manner that tramples on values. They are sitting on filth and trying to throw filth left and right.

HE TARGETED ÖZEL AGAIN: 'WE WILL DISTURB HIM EVEN MORE'

This person is also targeting the people in his own party. If there is anyone being blackmailed or threatened, it is none other than this individual. The CHP Chairman is rapidly becoming a subject of psychiatry rather than politics. Let this person understand this: We have never bowed down to the bullying of those who organize character assassinations with their hitmen in the media and social media, and we will not bow down from now on. Let him be disturbed; we will disturb him even more. As AK cadres, we will not be trapped in the snare that this low-level and unpleasant politics wants to pull us into. No matter what anyone says, the AK Party is stronger today than it was yesterday, and God willing, it will be stronger tomorrow. The AK Party family is Turkey's largest, most inclusive, and most colorful family. Everyone who says 'my country first' is our natural member. Our doors and our arms are wide open to these brothers and sisters."

News Source: 12punto