Murat Kurum's 'İliç' defense: What does the EIA report have to do with the landslide?

Murat Kurum, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) mayoral candidate for the People's Alliance, formed by the AKP and MHP, made statements on the program "Neler Oluyor Hayatta" (What's Happening in Life), hosted by Hakan Ural and Nur Tuğba Namlı on Kanal D. 

Responding to criticisms directed at him following the mining disaster in İliç, Erzincan, Kurum said: 

"After the accident in İliç, they say the environment minister of the time gave the EIA report, and this happened because of that. The Ministry of Environment looks at environmental activities and whether there is an impact on the environment. Everything is done according to the rules, and if someone violates them, the necessary action is taken. The ministry checks whether this facility has any problems or not. It cannot grant an operating permit. We inspected it 135 times, and we even shut this facility down for 3 months. It has had an EIA since 2008. They said they wanted to increase capacity and requested to be notified if there were any problems. We received opinions from 21 boards and said that if you take these measures, there is no problem from an environmental perspective. It also received an operating permit from the relevant ministry. Now they say it slid because you gave it an EIA; what does an EIA report have to do with a landslide? Then one should ask, 'Metrobus vehicles are breaking down, buses are catching fire, why aren't you doing your job?' There was flooding in Halkalı, there was flooding in Başakşehir. Are we going to say, 'Did you kill them?' Can such a thing be?"