CHP leader to embark on hectic European tour

ANKARA

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As part of his campaign for the Nov. 1 snap election, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, will gather with Turkish citizens during consecutive visits to six European countries, where he will also meet top European politicians in order to discuss the growing refugee crisis the EU has encountered. 

Kılıçdaroğlu’s hectic tour will start in Switzerland’s Bern on Sept. 23 and will end in Austria’s Vienna on Sept. 27, CHP deputy chair Tekin Bingül announced in a written statement released on Sept. 22.

In between, Kılıçdaroğlu will visit France’s Strasbourg, Belgium’s Brussels, the Netherlands’ Amsterdam as well as five different cities in Germany - Cologne, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Munich.

“Chairperson Kılıçdaroğlu will explain to important figures in EU politics that ending the tragedy that refuges, most of whom are Syrians, have been living, with a joint strategy to be developed between Turkey and the EU countries is a humanitarian obligation,” Tekin said, noting the CHP leader would also raise proposals on the role the EU could play in ending the civil war in the neighboring country. 

To this end, while in Strasbourg, Kılıçdaroğlu will hold separate talks with Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe (CoE), and Nils Muiznieks, the CoE’s commissioner for human rights.

In Brussels, the CHP leader will deliver a speech at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and will hold contacts with the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Turkey, Kati Piri, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and the president of the Greens–European Free Alliance at the European Parliament, Rebecca Harms.

In Brussels, Strasbourg and Vienna, Kılıçdaroğlu will hold mass gatherings with Turkish citizens living there as well as in Amsterdam and German cities. In Germany, he will hold talks with key figures of the Social Democrat Party (SPD), a junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition.