MHP likens government’s joint statement with HDP to treaty that ended Ottoman Empire
ANKARA
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Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lead Devlet Bahçeli has likened the disarmament call by the jailed outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan to the Treaty of Sevres, which marked the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.“In essence, there is no difference between the 433-item Treaty of Sevres declared on Aug. 10, 1920, which left a mark in history like a piece of dirt, and the text of treason dated Feb. 28, 2015,” said Bahçeli, addressing his party deputies at parliament on March 3.
Bahçeli compared the Ottoman statesmen Hadi Pasha, Tevfik Bey and Reşad Halis Bey, who undersigned the Sevres Treaty, to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) figures who took part in the joint declaration with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) group, who announced a call from Öcalan to the PKK to discuss abandoning arms in the spring. The HDP’s Sırrı Süreyya Önder also read out a 10-article declaration by Öcalan, which aims to set the framework for official negotiations to end the long-running Kurdish issue.
But MHP head Bahçeli remains skeptical. “How will we be able to secure the everlasting Turkish nation, the chastity of the state, the honor of the state, if anyone who takes to the mountains can rule for 30 years and then have its word listened to, procuring its impositions?” he said.
Öcalan’s 10 articles are a “text of treason,” Bahçeli said, describing the document as symbolizing “the collapse of the Turkish Republic, a declaration of the denial of its existence.”
The PKK will not abandon arms, but is simply trying to gain time, he added, claiming that it is actually the government that is withdrawing from the fight.
“It is stupidity and carelessness to expect the PKK to abandon or part ways with arms,” Bahçeli said.
The Treaty of Sevres marked the start of the partition and the ultimate disolution of the Ottoman Empire, before the modern Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923.
