Gürsel Tekin confirms 'party chairmanship offer' claim: There were parts he 'vehemently denied'

Journalist Ozan Gündoğdu stated that Gürsel Tekin, who was on the committee appointed as a trustee to the CHP Istanbul Provincial Presidency, called him for a meeting last year and that during the meeting, he received an offer for the chairmanship of a new party to be established.

Stating that he rejected the offer, Gündoğdu reported that Tekin said, "A new state order is being established" and that "the state will not hand over power to Ekrem İmamoğlu or the CHP." Tekin, on the other hand, confirmed that he met with Ozan Gündoğdu but stated that he did not use the expressions attributed to the meeting.  

Journalist Ozan Gündoğdu made statements regarding Gürsel Tekin, who was appointed as a trustee to the CHP Istanbul Provincial Presidency. 

Describing his meeting with Gürsel Tekin last year in the latest episode titled 'Interregnum' of his 'Trend Topic' podcast program, Gündoğdu said he received an "offer for the chairmanship of a newly established party" from Tekin.

Gündoğdu described what happened as follows:

“It was a date around the end of July or beginning of August 2024. Gürsel Tekin called me; we have no prior acquaintance. We only met 4-5 years ago when I was a guest on a program on the TELE 1 channel. I answered the phone and said, 'Go ahead, Mr. Gürsel.' He said, 'Ozan, my friend, I want to talk to you about a subject. Are you in Istanbul? Let's have a coffee.' We met at a patisserie in Levent. We had a meeting that lasted a total of half an hour. Gürsel Tekin was the party doing the talking for 29 minutes of that half hour. In other words, I spoke for a total of 1-2 minutes.”

Stating that Tekin told him, "A new state order is being established," Gündoğdu continued his words as follows:

“He said that the May 2023 elections were the last elections. He explained that this state would not hand over power to either İmamoğlu or the CHP. A new order had been established, and it was meaningless to dream of power. While explaining these, he was also talking about the positions he had taken in his own political past. The essence of what he was saying was that we had reached the end of the road. There was only one solution, and that was to establish a new party. Gürsel Tekin was trying to establish a party. I relaxed because I understood the situation, thinking he was introducing the party to journalists.”

Stating that he later received an offer he did not expect, Gündoğdu noted the following:

“I took a sip of my coffee, and Gürsel Tekin dropped the bombshell at the end. 'Ozan, my friend, we must establish a new party, and you should head it.' I am generally a cool-headed person, but I remember struggling to swallow my coffee in the face of this strange offer. I thought, 'Why me? What does this have to do with me?' Because I was young and didn't have a dirty past. They probably thought that way. If I accepted, I would have managed Gürsel Tekin's party on his behalf. And Gürsel Tekin would have negotiated with political elites through the new party. I rejected the offer clearly without hesitation. I said, 'This is not something that will happen, let's pretend I never heard it.' He said he would call again in 3 days and that I should think about it well. He called 3 days later, and I rejected it again. The subject closed there.”

In the conversation, Gündoğdu said that Tekin pointed to a time frame of 2-3 months and expressed the following:

“'We have 2-3 months left, Ozan; if we don't do anything within these 2-3 months, the subject will be closed.' 2-3 months after this conversation, in October, Akın Gürlek became the Chief Public Prosecutor of Istanbul, and on October 22, Bahçeli started the second solution process. It occurred to me to call Gürsel Tekin and ask, 'Is this what you meant when you said a lot of things would happen in 2-3 months?' But since our relationship was not a journalist-politician relationship, I did not find it appropriate to make such a call.”

STATEMENT FROM GÜRSEL TEKİN REGARDING THE CLAIMS IN QUESTION

Gürsel Tekin, on the other hand, made a statement regarding Ozan Gündoğdu's words. Speaking to Odatv, Tekin said, “Neither İmamoğlu nor the state... None of these words were used in our meeting; it is completely fabricated. But yes, I did talk to him about a new political process and a new party. Expressions like 'a new state order is being established' do not suit at all; I vehemently deny these,” he said.

News Source: 12punto