Fatih Erbakan lays down the law! If no agreement is reached, they will field their own candidates in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir

Yeniden Refah Party Chairman Fatih Erbakan, regarding the cooperation negotiations with the AKP for 3 major cities in the local elections, stated, "A final meeting will be held on Monday, and the situation will be clarified. Our goal here is solely an alliance regarding the metropolitan mayoral elections in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. The final decision will be made on Monday."

Erbakan made the statement before the provincial chairmen meeting held at his party's headquarters today.

He summarized his points as follows:

"We are announcing our 2 metropolitan mayoral candidates today. One is our Mersin Metropolitan Mayoral candidate, and the other is our Van Metropolitan Mayoral candidate. We will also announce our mayoral candidates in 2 provinces; one is our Bartın mayoral candidate, and the other is our Uşak mayoral candidate. On Monday, we will announce nearly 60 of our district and town mayoral candidates at our headquarters. Thus, the number of candidates we have announced to date will reach 214. Within a period of 10-15 days, we will have determined all our candidates. Today's candidates will be the mayors after March 31."

Following the statement, Erbakan answered questions from journalists. In response to a question regarding the negotiations with the AKP for the local elections, Erbakan said, "These negotiations have been carried out in 2 sessions so far. One of them was held last night; the AK Party delegation visited our headquarters. A final meeting will be held on Monday, and the situation will be clarified. Our goal here is solely an alliance regarding the metropolitan mayoral elections in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. The final decision will be made on Monday; if no agreement is reached, we will enter the elections in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir with our own mayoral candidates, and we have preparations in this regard."