ANKARA, TURKEY
To adopt the national will is primarily the duty of the Turkish parliament, the country’s parliament speaker said on Friday.
The Turkish parliament held a special sitting on the 101st anniversary of the first session of the Grand National Assembly, which coincides with the country’s National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.
“To adopt the national will is primarily the duty of Turkey’s Grand National Assembly,” Mustafa Sentop told the lawmakers in an opening speech.
Any kind of illegal and unlawful intervention targeting the will of the Turkish parliament essentially targets the nation, Sentop noted.
“Those who ignore the nation’s will, who wait for an opportunity to interrupt it, have inflicted the greatest damage on our state, our nation so far,” he said.
Sentop added that all political points of view should be represented under the roof of the Turkish parliament, “unless they intend to harm Turkey’s integrity and support the violence as a method.”
The National Sovereignty and Children’s Day is a public holiday in Turkey commemorating the foundation of the Turkish Grand National Assembly on April 23, 1920.
In the early years of the country, Ataturk dedicated April 23 to children, emphasizing that they were the future of the nation.
The national assembly met for the first time in 1920 in Ankara, the country’s future capital, during the War of Independence to lay the foundations for an independent, secular, and modern republic.
