President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the Turkish Parliament will start working on a new constitution when it returns from summer break in October.
"We will completely liberate Türkiye from the coup-era Constitution and will resume efforts with our alliance partners to come up with a civilian constitution befitting our democracy when our parliament reopens," Erdoğan told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara on Tuesday.
Since 1982, the current Constitution, drafted following a military coup, has seen several amendments. The bloody 1980 coup, which led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
The proposed changes focus on the topics of freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech as well as the rights of women and the disabled. The enhancement of these rights and liberties has seen setbacks in the bureaucracy that have prevented these rights and liberties from being implemented properly. The plan has been prepared in accordance with the observations and reports of the international mechanisms that monitor human rights in cooperation with several human rights groups.
Some of the other principles of the plan are human dignity, as the essence of all rights, under the active protection of the law; the equal, impartial and honest provision of public services to everyone; the rule of law shall be fortified in all areas as a safeguard for rights and freedoms, and no one may be deprived of liberty due to criticism or expression of thought.
Erdoğan also said Türkiye strives for a solution based on the demographic realities of Syria's territorial integrity as he said influential regional actors should do the same.
The president noted that it was crucial for the Assad regime to act in line with the realities on the ground and refrain from any actions that may hinder the ongoing normalization process with Türkiye.
“Unfortunately, Assad is watching steps taken under the Türkiye-Russia-Iran-Syria format for normalization from a distance,” he said.
Meanwhile, Erdoğan also criticized support for the PKK terrorist group’s offshoots in Iraq and Syria.
“Each weapon given to the terrorist group keeps the blood flowing persistently in the region and damages the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria,” Erdoğan said.
