Former Turkish minister likens HDP co-chair Demirtaş to a werewolf

ERZURUM

AP photo

Former Health Minister Recep Akdağ, a politician from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has likened Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş to a “werewolf.”

“I think of Selahattin Demirtaş as a werewolf. He lives like a normal human during the day, even playing the bağlama [a stringed instrument], but he turns into a monster when a full moon rises at night,” Akdağ said during a live program on a local TV station in the eastern province of Erzurum on Aug. 20.

“Unfortunately that is what he is. I wish he were not like that,” he added.

A dialogue process between the ruling AKP and the Kurdish problem-focused HDP to solve Turkey’s Kurdish problem was recently halted, with more than 50 Turkish security forces killed in attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which shares grassroots with the HDP.

“One of the most striking features of this process was how the HDP linked arms with the PKK to pressure our citizens during elections,” Akdağ also said.

The AKP lost its single-party majority in parliament with the June 7 polls when the HDP managed to cross the national election threshold of 10 percent, depriving the ruling party of many seats.

As Turkey heads to a fresh election due to the failure of parties to form a coalition government after the June vote, Akdağ accused the HDP of undermining the peace process.