HDP accuses gov’t of ‘dragging Turkey into civil war’

ANKARA

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The Turkish army’s ongoing military operations in Iraq and Syria to crack down on terrorists was engineered by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), whose objective to regain its one-party government is dragging Turkey into a “civil war,” the leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, has claimed. 

“A temporary government with its temporary prime minister is dragging the country step-by-step into a civil war, regional war. Turkey has already been bogged down the Middle East quagmire because of wrong policies in Syria,” Demirtaş told reporters July 27, before a party meeting in Ankara. 

Demirtaş’s criticisms came as the AKP-led government started a comprehensive military campaign against terror inside Turkey and through cross border operations in Iraq and Syria. The target in Iraq is the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and in Syria the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The government strongly slammed the HDP for not condemning the PKK’s recent terror acts, with accusations that it relied on the terror organization. 

For Demirtaş however, these operations were designed to let the AKP re-gain its one-party government that it lost in the June polls. “The AKP, as a ruling party already knee-deep in corruption, has begun wrathfully seeking ways to become the government once again,” he said, accusing the government of being responsible for the deaths caused by recent terror acts. 

The real architect of this design was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was the practitioner, he argued. “They should better know that we have no palaces, no red plates, no millions of dollars to lose. We came penniless and we’ll go penniless. You better think about yourself. We have no fear of anything,” he said. 

“These massive cross-border operations are the government’s efforts to save itself. These are operations of the palace. The palace has established its own state with a massive budget, cover operations and institutions,” he said.   

Peace was just ‘a move ahead’

Demirtaş vowed his HDP would continue to work for the next elections to avoid the AKP stirring up more trouble in Turkey, stressing, “Peace was just a move ahead. There was only step left,” in reference to the halted Kurdish peace process. 

In response to Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli’s call for the closure of the HDP on charges of links with the PKK, Demirtaş said, “Parties are opened and closed by the people. They should better give an account of their dirty history.”