ANKARA, Jan 10 (A.A) - Motherland Party (ANAP) leader and Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has said the Emlakbank investigation was a ''total embarrassment''.
''A prosecutor with good intentions would not instruct officials to go and get people out of their beds and put them under custody in the middle of the night without any evidence,'' he commented.
During his ANAP parliamentary group meeting on Thursday, Yilmaz also spoke about natural gas prices.
Yilmaz said that people now saw how much of the money they pay goes to the state as tax, how much of it goes to municipalities and how much of it is charged for the service given.
''As a result of these discussions, our Energy Minister started an initiative and brought down the natural gas prices significantly although it didn't satisfy everyone. Now, the ANAP will try to take this further. We'll propose to deduct Value Added Tax (VAT) from natural gas at least for a temporary period of time. Eighteen percent of VAT is a high rate for natural gas,'' he said.
Yilmaz celebrated Jan. 10, Journalists' Day during his speech. He also announced that Parliament would work on the changes on the Press Law in February.
Speaking about the Emlakbank investigation, Yilmaz said ''Noone can defend corruption under any circumstances.'' ''People who are involved in corruption will of course be investigated. But a prosecutor with good intentions would not instruct security officials to go and get people out of their beds in the middle of the night and take them under custody knowing that they would be released. We cannot remain indifferent to such an incident. If we don't want the same thing to happen to us one day, we have to discuss it when it happens to other people.''
''Our Parliament should definitely interfere with this incident. The justice minister has to clarify it also. Turkey cannot join the EU only by increasing its national income from 2,000 to 10,000 U.S. dollars per capita. The way to the EU is to have a democratic state of law in the real sense,'' he said.