CHP’s presidential candidate İnce promises to solve Kurdish issue

VAN

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate Muharrem İnce pledged to solve the Kurdish problem in parliament, stating that the main opposition would form a commission with representatives of all political parties for the solution.

“The Kurdish problem is a problem of democratization, it is a problem of freedom, a cultural problem, an economic problem, but first of all, it is a problem of political ethics,” Muharrem İnce said in the eastern province of Van on June 4.

His comments came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on June 3. “There is no Kurdish issue,” he said.

“We do not say there are no Kurds, we say there is no Kurdish problem,” Erdoğan said.

“No one should be searching for a state for [Turkey’s] Kurds. The Kurds’ state is the state of the Turkish Republic,” he said.

İnce has criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) approach to the issue. “If I become president, which I believe I will, I will solve this problem,” he said.

“A politician has come to Van and has come to Diyarbakır. They say things that would please Kurds. But then, they go to Trabzon, Edirne, and talk totally differently. At one place, they disregard nationalism, but in another place they say totally different things,” he said.

İnce said the place for the solution should be the parliament, and pledged to form a commission with all political parties in the parliament with equal representation regardless of the number of seats in order to solve the problem.

“We will discuss the issue freely on [state-run] TRT in front of everyone. Eighty-one million people will know what we are doing. There will not be any secret meeting, everything will be in front of the people,” he said.

The CHP candidate also reminded he had opposed the lift of legislative immunities in 2016 despite his party’s support, stating that he did not believe in the independence of the judiciary in the current record of democracy in Turkey.

“I have said there is no court in Turkey and there is no judiciary. They are acting with instruction. I did not follow the party administration on the issue of lifting immunities. I did the right thing,” İnce said.

After the immunities lifted, 15 lawmakers from Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were arrested within two years’ time and over 100 summary proceedings were issued on around 50 HDP lawmakers, while CHP Istanbul lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu was also imprisoned.