President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan contended that Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is trying to remain relevant by saying he could be "arrested" soon and this issue is not even on the agenda.
"I don't regard these statements as serious. Kılıçdaroğlu shouldn't make statements that depend on his thoughts," Erdoğan said at a press conference on Aug. 21 in Istanbul.
"Did you hear something or did you receive some information from the judiciary about it?" he asked.
Erdoğan's remarks come after Kılıçdaroğlu said in an interview with Hürriyet Daily News on Monday that he could be arrested in the near future.
"I don't want to think of a scenario in which the head of Turkey's main opposition is behind the bars," Kılıçdaroğlu said on Aug. 21. Implying his arrest, he added that he was ready for anything. In the interview, CHP's Kılıçdaroğlu said that his possible arrest would not weaken the opposition, and on the contrary it would strengthen its position.
The row regarding a possible arrest of the CHP leader stemmed from his possible involvement in an espionage case.
Recently, CHP Deputy Enis Berberoğlu, who was found guilty of supplying confidential information regarding the country's intelligence service to two journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The CHP delegation, led by Kılıçdaroğlu and Berberoğlu, had visited the Gülenist Terror Group's (FETÖ) mouthpiece Zaman on May 17, 2015. Two days after that visit, Kılıçdaroğlu said that they had seen records that allegedly indicated aid trucks were carrying weapons, which Cumhuriyet reported on May 22.
Berberoğlu was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in leaking top secret documents and supplying confidential information regarding the country's intelligence agency.
