There were always Erdoğan-lovers in HDP, co-chair says

Rifat Başaran - ANKARA

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş. AA Photo

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has criticized certain groups within his party for being supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while speaking to reporters in parliament. 

Responding to reports of certain people within the HDP who criticized the party’s election motto of “we won’t make you president,” which directly targeted Erdoğan’s willingness to become a president in a presidential system rather than in a parliamentarian system, Demirtaş said: “Only Erdoğan-lovers are concerned about this. There were always Erdoğan-lovers within our party.”

“These [people] were secretly Erdoğan supporters. Some of them worked as deputies too. We were well aware of their desire. These people believed that the peace process would be solved by loving Erdoğan, contacting good relations with the [Justice and Development Party] AKP and even by courting favoring with the AKP. These [people] are former deputies because of that. Otherwise they would continue to work as deputies,” Demirtaş said. 

He also said the peace process should continue in parliament, adding the party’s major aim was to revive the halted process. “A commission in parliament should be formed,” said Demirtaş.

Meanwhile, Demirtaş cut his visit to northern Iraq short on Dec. 9, as Turkish fighter jets hit various outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in the Kandil Mountains.

Demirtaş and HDP İzmir deputy Ertuğrul Kürkçü first crossed into northern Iraq from southeastern Diyarbakır province on late Dec. 7, going across the Habur Gate on the Turkey-Iraq border before later headed to the northern Iraqi city of Suleymaniye after making contacts in Arbil on Dec. 8.

However, HDP Arbil bureau representative Şilan Eminoğlu said Demirtaş and Kürkçü returned to Turkey immediately over the recent incidents in the region.

Turkish fighter jets hit PKK targets in northern Iraq on late Dec. 8, targeting the storages and shelters of PKK militants in the Kandil, Hakurk, Zap and Avasin Baysan camps while Demirtaş and Kürkçü were in Suleymaniye.

Violence between Turkish security forces and PKK militants reignited this summer after a suicide bombing attack against socialist activists in the border town of Suruç killed 33 people, shattering a fragile peace process, dubbed the “resolution process” by governmental officials, following a two-and-a-half-year de facto period of non-conflict. The bombing was blamed on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but the PKK and many in the Turkish opposition blamed the AKP for creating the conditions to facilitate the attack.