BRATISLAVA – Turkey’s National Assembly, its unicameral parliament, has no immediate plans to reintroduce capital punishment, Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Omer Celik said Saturday.
In July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country would reinstate the death penalty if the nation demanded it after the failed coup of July 15.
“Remember what happened – tanks tried to roll over people, helicopters shot at them, 240 were killed, people took to the streets and this was their demand. We heard them. But the death penalty is not on the National Assembly’s agenda and no decision to reintroduce it has been taken,” Celik told reporters in Bratislava, Slovakia.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in July that the European Union’s talks with Turkey on its admission would be stopped the moment Ankara returned the capital punishment.
– Sputnik