MHP leader says Hüda Par has no links to Hizballah
ANKARA
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli reacted against the critics for support of The Free Cause Party (Hüda Par) to People’s Alliance and said the party has no links to the militant Islamist group Hizballah.
In a written statement on March 26, Bahçeli stated that there have been “unfounded accusations” recently targeting his party regarding the support of Hüda Par to the People’s Alliance for the upcoming May 14 elections.
Hüda Par announced that it “has no ties or connections with any terrorist organization, and this has been expressed by its interlocutors,” Bahçeli said.
Those who “attack the Nationalist Movement Party with arrows of unjust criticism, slander unknowingly, must, first of all, explain and express the deep ties” of Nation Alliance with “terrorist organizations,” Bahçeli said.
He recalled that brutal militants and the leader of Hizballah was neutralized in the serial and comprehensive operations carried out on Jan. 17, 2000, during the 57th Government.
“It is a known fact that the Free Cause Party [Hüda Par], which decided to support our president and the People’s Alliance, was founded on Dec. 19, 2012. There has not been any persuasive and substantiated information so far for a clear relationship between the Hizballah terrorist organization and the Free Cause Party,” Bahçeli stated.
Bahçeli called on former Interior Minister Sadettin Tantan, who was on duty during the police operations against Hizballah between 1999-2001, to shed light on the issue.
Following the statement by the MHP leader, Tantan refuted Bahçeli’s remarks.
“Of course, there is a connection between Hüda Par and Hizballah. There is no need to list the names one by one… I do not think that he believes what he said. I believe he said it with the anxiety of getting into parliament again,” Tantan told Sozcü TV.
Hüda Par was founded in 2012 on the ashes of the outlawed militant group Hizballah (not to be confused with Hezbollah in Lebanon).
Hüda Par supported President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2018 presidential election while contesting the 2018 parliamentary election as a stand-alone party.
