Only coalition can solve twin bombing at HDP rally, says Demirtaş

Deniz Zeyrek – ANKARA

DHA photo

Uncovering the details of the deadly bombing of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır just before the general election could only occur with a coalition government in which the HDP is involved, the party’s co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said. 

“Someone without support from the state could not have conducted the attack [on the HDP rally]. Even if it was solved right now, the state would cover it up. But we would not allow [the issue] to be covered up in a coalition government of which we are a part,” Demirtaş told daily Hürriyet.

“In a coalition government with the Republican People’s Party [CHP], we would demand the issue be uncovered,”  he added.

The twin blasts at the HDP’s pre-election rally on June 5 in Diyarbakır left four people dead and more than 100 others injured two days before Turkey’s June 7 parliamentary election, in which the HDP scored a major breakthrough by crossing the critical 10 percent threshold.

Demirtaş said the attack was the “most important step” of the “initiative to start a civil war” conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Hürriyet earlier revealed that Orhan Gönder, the arrested suspect in the twin bombing, had fought for ISIL in Syria before coming back to Turkey. Before and while Gönder was in Syria, his family had informed authorities that their son was recruited by ISIL, and had even reached out to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in an effort to save their son. 

Gönder returned to Turkey at a time when he was wanted by the state security forces for draft evasion and before obtaining the bombs in Diyarbakır he was detained from his hotel by police. He was warned about evading his obliatory military service but was later released, even though his name should have been included the list of “missing persons associated with terror.”