Turkish parliament fails to make a joint declaration after Ankara attack

ANKARA

AA photo

The Turkish parliament has failed to release a joint declaration condemning a suicide bomb on Feb. 17 that targeted a military convoy in Ankara, due to objections on the statement’s wording by one of the four political parties represented at the national assembly.

Despite the lack of consent from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) eventually released a “joint” statement, though without gaining the approval of the HDP.

“We, as the political parties which have groups at the TBMM [the Grand National Assembly of Turkey], strongly condemn inhumane terror attacks aimed at our unity and integrity and our serenity and security.

Terror and violence will never be able to achieve its target and goal. We declare with determination that our precious nation will never bow to terror and that the Republic of Turkey has the power and the capacity to give this game away,” the three parties said in their statement late on Feb. 17, hours after the attack.

Deputy parliamentary group chairs of each of the three consenting parties separately read the statement from the rostrum, receiving applauds from the general assembly where members of parliament stood up in show of respect.

HDP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair İdris Baluken also took to the rostrum to say their party had already condemned the attack.

“A picture has emerged as if three political parties condemned this loathsome attack and one political party didn’t condemn it -- a situation which is not consistent with political ethics. There was no conciliation about the content of the text that was drafted. We stated that this text should include the massacres committed in Diyarbakır’s Station Square, Suruç, Ankara and Sultanahmet and that there should be an expression regarding civilian losses, no matter who they were killed by, during the curfews,” Baluken said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was blamed for a bomb that killed four people at an HDP rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on June 5, 2015. An ISIL militant also killed 33 socialist activists on July 20, 2015, at the Amara Cultural Center in the southeastern district of Suruç. Two ISIL militants then killed at least 100 people attending a peace rally in Ankara on Oct. 10, 2015, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

Another jihadist suicide attack blamed on ISIL took place in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet neighborhood and killed 11 people. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has blamed the most recent attack on Ankara, which left 28 dead and over 50 injured, on the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and by extension, the Syrian regime.