Obama's BFF PM Erdogan tells environment activists: "Go and live in the forest"

Obama's BFF PM Erdogan tells environment activists: "Go and live in the forest" (HD).

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan strongly criticized environment activists opposing the construction of a road passing through the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) campus and its forest and advised them to live in the forests if they did not want roads to be built. 

“I took notice of a placard today. ‘We want forest, not roads.’ Can something like that be? There are so many forests. You can’t go to your university if you have no roads. But if you want, we can send you to the forest. Go and live in forests,” Erdoğan said, in an address to his Justice and Development Party (AKP) provincial mayors on Sept. 18.

The road Erdoğan mentioned is the disputed project passing through the ODTÜ campus which caused opposition from both the university students and residents of the Çukurambar district of Ankara. Police had intervened with pepper gas and water cannon against demonstrators last week.

“Roads made civilization. Whatever they say, we will not give up building roads. Because roads connect people,” he said. Recalling that similar demonstrations had occurred in June over the Gezi Park construction plans, Erdoğan described the protesters as “vandals” and “barbarians” and called on AKP mayors to be attentive against the reoccurrence of such attacks.

“On March 30, we will have local elections. We have passed through three genera and two local elections in the last 11 years but I can assure you that this election on March 30 is the important one,” Erdoğan said, and asked his mayors to work relentlessly to prove once again the power of the people’s will. “We will write another page of history on March 30.”