Turkey: Main opposition defends Izmir mayoral candidate

By Baris Gundogan</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Friday defended his party's mayoral candidate for the Aegean province of Izmir.</p> <p>In a morning news show appearance at Fox TV, Kilicdaroglu said Tunc Soyer “should not be judged” by what his father, Nurettin Soyer, did during Turkey's 1980s political turmoil.</p> <p>CHP's decision to nominate Tunc Soyer as mayoral candidate for Izmir has been criticized recently, mainly because his father was a public prosecutor in the 1980s — known to be demanding death sentence of 220 people from the nationalist wing, including the founder and former leader of Nationalist Movement Party Alparslan Turkes.</p> <p>&quot;Why do you judge children because of their father or vice versa?,&quot; Kilicdaroglu asked. &quot;It is not democratic to blame [Soyer] for his father's lawsuit many years ago.&quot;</p> <p>Kilicdaroglu also said that Tunc Soyer had a &quot;successful&quot; tenure as mayor of Seferihisar, a district of Izmir.</p> <p>&quot;We will be strong in metropolitan cities. Hopefully, we will win Ankara, Istanbul, Antalya, Mersin, Bursa, Izmir. Our candidates are in the field, working very hard,&quot; he said.