Turkey's main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu vowed to press on with an intensifying campaign for justice in defiance of "threats" by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing him of ruling as a dictator.
Kilicdaroglu, head of the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), told Agence France-Presse in an interview he believed that Erdogan feared his movement and consequently was attacking him in nearly every public speech.
The CHP leader, who analysts until now rarely saw as posing a major challenge to Erdogan, threw down a new gauntlet to the president this summer with a nearly month-long march complaining of injustice in Turkey in the wake of the July 15, 2016 failed coup bid.
This weekend, he kicked off a four-day "justice congress" highlighting violations in the unprecedented crackdown that followed the failed coup, in a bid to build on the momentum of that march.
"Let him (Erdogan) threaten as much as he wants, we are right. We will defend justice, democracy, judicial independence and media freedom to the end because we are right," said Kilicdaroglu.
"He sees me as a threat. He is from time to time delivering speeches that contain threats but we will not be frightened off by their threats," the CHP leader said in front of his trailer at the outdoor event in the western Canakkale region.
Erdogan has lambasted Kilicdaroglu in speeches and even darkly hinted that the CHP chief could himself face judicial proceedings.
But Kilicdaroglu said this showed that "Erdogan is definitely shying away and scared of me".
He accused the Turkish president, who has dominated Turkey for almost one and a half decades as premier and head of state, of suffering from "Kilicdaroglu illness" due to nearly daily tirades targeting him.
Kilicdaroglu is hoping the appeal of his justice movement will go well beyond the CHP and help create a united front against the president ahead of 2019 elections.
The stakes will be particularly high in the polls -- Erdogan this April won a referendum on enhancing the powers of the presidency which critics fear give the head of state near authoritarian powers.
Asked if his movement could put the Turkish president's career in jeopardy, Kilicdaroglu said: "Erdogan does not have a career. Do the dictators have a career? Do coup plotters have a career?"
Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of staging a "civilian coup" in the crackdown which critics say has gone went well beyond the coup plotters and targeted all kinds of dissidents.
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