Turkey will decide whether or not to reinstate the death
penalty, not the West, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
Saturday.
"The issue of the death penalty is already on the government's
agenda. I have said that I will approve it if the parliament takes
this decision," Erdogan told a crowd in Turkey's northwestern
province of Sakarya during the funeral of Muhammet Fatih Safiturk,
the governor of Mardin's Derik district, who succumbed Friday to
wounds sustained in a PKK terrorist attack.
"We will take the decision on this, not the West," Erdogan
said.
The European Union -- to which Turkey is a candidate -- warned
Ankara over the reinstatement of capital punishment saying it would
end the membership process.
Since the foiled putsch, which martyred 246 people and wounded
nearly 2,000 others in Turkey, officials have voiced calls for the
death penalty to be reinstated for the putschists.
The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), which have
orchestrated the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey and be behind a
long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the
infiltration of Turkish institutions.
The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the
U.S., and EU -- resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July last
year. Since then, more than 300 civilians and nearly 800 security
personnel have been martyred. Around 8,000 PKK terrorists have been
killed or apprehended.