Turkish main opposition asks supermarkets not to hike prices of 10 basic goods

Turkey's main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has asked the owners and executives of supermarkets in the country not to hike the prices of 10 basic goods amid deepening poverty. He said that his party will compensate for their financial losses when it comes to power in the upcoming 2023 elections.

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is seen addressing a party meeting in this file photo.

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Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has asked supermarket owners not to increase the prices of 10 basic goods, saying that his party will compensate for their financial loses should they come to power in the upcoming elections.

Kılıçdaroğlu shared his letter that he sent to supermarket owners on his social media account.

“As I have promised, I am sharing the letter that I sent to supermarket owners and executives. I call on my nation to be a witness,” Kılıçdaroğlu wrote on Twitter.

Kılıçdaroğlu named these 10 basic goods as "products of survival" and listed them as follows: flour, oil, milk, cracked wheat, pasta, lentils, egg, cheese, salt and a specific kind of vegetable depending on the month.

“We will compensate for the [financial] losses that this sacrifice which I ask of you will cause,” Kılıçdaroğlu wrote in his letter.

The cost of living expenses in Turkey is expected to become even more painful in the upcoming days amid the local currency's sharp depreciation. It is no longer just the low-income families who suffer from the currency crash, but the middle class too.

Rejecting to put on any responsibility for the lira's collapse, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last week that the country was in a "war of economic independence."