Bahçeli denounces BDP, gov’t for Kandil photo

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli condemned both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and deputies of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) yesterday for a meeting held March 1 at the Kandil Mountains by the de facto leader of the outlawed Kurdistan workers’ Party (PKK) and the BDP deputies.

Reiterating his main arguments against the ongoing resolution process, which aims at ending the conflict between security forces and the PKK, Bahçeli said Erdoğan and the government, in cooperation with the BDP, has been serving as “a bridge” to “Kandil and İmralı,” in a speech delivered at his party’s parliamentary group meeting. Kandil Mountains is located in northern Iraq and hosts the PKK’s headquarters while İmralı is the name of the island where PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is serving a life sentence.

“I believe that each of the nation’s children damned and responded with hatred to the images of BDP deputies, who are extension of the separatist politics, in the Kandil lair of the PKK terror organization on March 1. No matter from where we look at, giving an image under the PKK rags and the poster of the İmralı murderer by gathering around a table is a scandal, treason and a challenge against the Turkish nation,” Bahçeli said. While recalling how at the time Erdoğan was frustrated when footage of BDP deputies embracing PKK militants was revealed, he noted how premier’s approach toward the photo taken at Kandil was different.

Shortly after the delivery of identical letters to the PKK headquarters and the European wing of the group, a BDP delegation travelled to Kandil and met with Murat Karayılan, the de facto leader of the PKK, in order to discuss the process.

If press reports suggesting that Öcalan will deliver his call for the PKK to declare a ceasefire through an audiovisual system that would be set up at a square in Diyarbakır on March 21, the date of the Nevruz holiday, then Erdoğan can let Öcalan address Parliament too, Bahçeli said sarcastically in response to reporters’ questions following the group meeting.