Turkey’s newly launched Green Party says it is ‘last exit before extinction’

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s Green Party (Yeşiller Partisi) has been formally launched after members handed in the necessary documents to the Interior Ministry on Sept. 21, saying it is the country’s last chance before extinction.

“Our house is on fire! We will put it out” is the slogan of the new political grouping.

“We are the last exit before extinction. Green politics is the only solution to the ecological, economic and political crises,” Emine Özkan, Green Party’s co-spokesperson, told daily Milliyet.

She noted that the local Green Party is in touch with other green movements across the world and added that “the Green Party in Germany is giving up hope and motivating us.”

It would be a wrong perception to think that the Green Party will focus only on ecological and environmental matters, Özkan said. “We are here to add a new color to domestic politics.”

The Greens is the party which sees the country’s real problems and offers concrete solutions to those problems, according to Özkan.

“Green politics is needed for a fair, pluralist and peaceful world…We will resolve Turkey’s problems with a green politics,” she said.

Özkan reminded that the greens movement has existed since the 1980s in Turkey and their party is the third Green Party which has been launched in the country to date.