HDP ‘deceived nation’ with Turkish flags before June 7 poll: Erdoğan

ANKARA

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has elaborated on his notion of being “local and national,” while staging another attack on the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which he said deceived the country by presenting itself as an entity which respects the Turkish flag.

“The terror organization is not only the enemy of the country, but is also the enemy of all members of our nation along with our Kurdish siblings. During our rally in Istanbul, I focused on being local and being national. Here I say it: Like all of my citizens living in the region and in the four corners of our country, my Kurdish siblings and my Zaza siblings are also local and national, they are own children of this homeland,” Erdoğan said Sept. 29 at a gathering with a large group of muhtars at the presidential palace.

The reference was to a rally which he led along with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu at Istanbul’s Yenikapı Square on Sept. 20. The rally was attended by more than 100,000 people and resembled an election rally, with Erdoğan vowing in a barnstorming speech to pursue the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “to the terrorists’ last redoubt.”

“No matter which party they are from, I want you to send 550 local and national deputies to parliament on Nov. 1,” Erdoğan said at the rally, referring to the Nov. 1 snap elections in what some had speculated was a suggestion that Kurdish deputies were not part of the nation.

Speaking to muhtars at the 11th such meeting that Erdoğan has held at the presidential palace since late January, Erdoğan made clear that the PKK was “not local and not part of this nation.”

“Those who aim at our country’s gains do not belong to this country, even if they are in parliament,” Erdoğan said, in an apparent reference to the HDP, which he insistently says is the political wing of the PKK.

“They held a meeting in Hamburg. Even the flag of Trinidad was there, but there was no Turkish flag there. What happened to your saying that you didn’t have a problem with the flag? You have a problem with the flag and also with the homeland and the state. Who are you deceiving?” Erdoğan said.

HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş recently held a rally in Hamburg to meet the Turkish electorate living there in the run-up to the Nov. 1 elections.

“We are aware of everything; we know everything from A to Z. Those who try to hide murderers cannot be either local or national no matter which identity card they have,” he said. “You will not be able to deceive this nation by flying a few Turkish flags. You succeeded at this in the June 7 elections, but I believe that my nation will not lend support to this on Nov. 1.”

Shortly before Erdoğan delivered his speech, the HDP slammed the pro-government newspapers Akşam and Takvim for claiming that there was no Turkish flag in the hall where Demirtaş delivered a speech in Hamburg. 

The two dailies are trying to “start a new wave of provocation by using hate speech and targeting Mr. Selahattin Demirtaş with the lies that they publish,” the HDP stated.