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PM Erdogan, Deputy PM Arinch to travel to Diyarbakir together amid rift

Türkiye Materials 14 November 2013 03:54 (UTC +04:00)
A key visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Diyarbakir on Nov. 16 could serve as a means to make overcome a recent rift between him and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
PM Erdogan, Deputy PM Arinch to travel to Diyarbakir together amid rift

A key visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Diyarbakir on Nov. 16 could serve as a means to make overcome a recent rift between him and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinch, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Erdogan and Arinch were publicly engaged in a row, mostly due to the prime minister's stance and style in his criticism of co-ed student housing.

Erdogan's aides contacted Arinc's office on Nov. 13 and conveyed the prime minister's invitation to travel on board the same plane to Diyarbakir, where he will also meet Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on Nov. 16, sources close to Arinc told Hurriyet Daily News. Arinch responded affirmatively to Erdogan's invitation, the same sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Chair Huseyin Celik, also the spokesperson of the party, speaking to the Anadolu Agency later in the day, confirmed Erdogan and Arinc will travel together to Diyarbakir on Nov. 16.

"The prime minister and Arinc will go to Diyarbakir together. There is no problem at all," Celik told Anadolu, adding those who were eager to get political benefit out of an assumed rift between the two long-time allies should better leave such hopes aside.

"There is no benefit for them to gain here," Celik said. Erdogan suggested last week that regulations be drawn up to stop male and female students living together. His comments caused uproar in Turkey, where critics fear encroachment of an Islamic religious influence on the affairs of a secular state.

Arinc, also government spokesman and a co-founder of the AKP, previously denied press reports that Erdogan had made such a suggestion during a closed-door party meeting over the weekend.

Yet, in a rather blunt riposte, Arinc said in an interview on state broadcaster TRT on Nov. 15 that Erdogan had left the government unnecessarily open to criticism.

"I would like to make a call to our prime minister as a friend and brother that there is a clear contradiction between his speech as prime minister and my statement as the government spokesman," Arinc said. "I am not responsible for this contradiction."

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