AKP-MHP coalition would be 'war cabinet': HDP deputy

Okan Konuralp - ANKARA

DHA Photo

Celal Doğan, a senior politician from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has reportedly told President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a private meeting that a potential coalition between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would likely be labeled a “war cabinet.”

A coalition government between the AKP and the MHP would be widely considered by Turkey’s Kurdish citizens as “a war cabinet” against both the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Syria, Doğan reportedly told Erdoğan. 

Sources from the HDP said a small group of party executives were informed beforehand of the meeting between Erdoğan and HDP Gaziantep deputy Celal Doğan over the weekend. The meeting was the result of a “personal initiative” and thus is “not officially binding” for the party, said the same sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After the meeting, Doğan told HDP executives about the details he discussed with Erdoğan. 

The meeting was held just days before the president is expected to officially give the mandate to form a coalition government to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s AKP, which came first in June 7 elections but lost its majority for the first time since 2002. 

Doğan reportedly told Erdoğan that the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is ready to take initiatives that would “ease concerns” related to developments in the sensitive border region between Turkey and Syria.

Ankara worries that the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), intends to create a “Kurdish corridor” - a southern corridor which would reach to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and that would supposedly lay the ground for the foundation of an independent Kurdish state.

As for Erdoğan, he reportedly objected to Doğan’s description of a potential AKP-MHP “war cabinet.” 

“I don’t believe any coalition government will be long-lasting. All coalition options will eventually end with an election,” Erdoğan reportedly said, while apparently favoring a snap election, which he prefers to call a “re-run.”

Doğan is a senior social democratic politician who was elected as the mayor of Gaziantep in three consecutive elections, holding the post from 1989 to 2004. Before joining the HDP ahead of the June 7 parliamentary election, he had been a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).