Intel chief joint candidate for ruling AKP, PKK and HDP, nationalist Turkish opposition claims

Umut Erdem KIRŞEHİR

DHA Photo

Turkey’s outgoing intelligence chief is a joint lawmaker candidate of the ruling party, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP), the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has said, saying this will help legitimize the PKK.

Hakan Fidan, head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), “might be a rational name,” MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in the Central Anatolian province of Kırşehir. “He might be considered as the joint candidate of the resolution process.”

Fidan has been in the talks with the PKK since the Oslo talks, he said, referring to the 2009-2011 negotiations between MİT officials and representatives of the PKK, when Fidan was a special adviser to then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The talks collapsed after a PKK attack killed 13 soldiers near Diyarbakır in July 2011.

Now, Erdoğan wants 400 ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) more deputies in the Turkish parliament after the June 7 elections, as he also wants a shift from the current parliamentary system to a presidential system, which might mean new responsibilities for Fidan, Bahçeli said.

“If a new idea over the line shared by the AKP, the PKK and the HDP will develop in the upcoming days, can Hakan Fidan be the joint name for this?” he asked.

Bahçeli frequently criticizes the ruling party for cooperating with the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan. According to him, Fidan might be a figure for a new political structure, or a political coalition.

“The AKP, the PKK and the HDP, the parties of the resolution [process], should agree on a joint name to politicize the PKK, bring in the presidential system and meet the demand for 400 deputies,” Bahçeli said.