AK Party To Call Parliament To Session For Renewal Of Syria Mandate

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has announced that it will call Parliament to session on Thursday to discuss an extension to the parliamentary mandate allowing military incursions into Syria and the swearing in of the new ministers for the power-sharing government.

The announcement was made by AK Party group deputy chairperson Doğan Kubat on the NTV channel on Monday.

In October 2014, Parliament granted unlimited powers to the government for one year to send troops abroad and allow foreign forces to use Turkish territory for possible military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). That mandate ends in October and needs to be extended.

Turkey shares a 1,200-kilometer-long border with Iraq and Syria and is struggling with 1.5 million refugees from the Syrian civil war.

Also, the new Cabinet announced on Friday is expected to be sworn in on Thursday.

The appointment of Selami Altınok, a former governor-turned-police chief, and Kenan İpek, former undersecretary to the minister of justice, to the critical posts of minister of interior and minister of justice, respectively, have especially fueled speculation that the government-led police operations against dissenters will continue.

Both appointees have been accused of acting in favor of the AK Party and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after two corruption probes, which incriminated several ministers, businessmen and members of Erdoğan's family, went public in December 2013.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)