MHP will join charter talks without hesitation: Head

ANKARA

AA Photo

Turkey’s nationalist party will join talks to forge a new constitution on any ground even if the ruling and the main opposition parties leave negotiations, its leader has said.

“Those who will remain seated around the table - even if the ruling party walks off it – would be those three precious deputies of the MHP,” said Devlet Bahçeli, head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), referring to negotiation talks expected to start between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Welcoming the AKP’s latest invitation extended to the CHP to the negotiation table as “kind,” Bahçeli reiterated his party’s wish to agree on drafting a new constitution. Parliament Speaker İsmail Kahraman sent invitation letters to Turkey’s four political parties at parliament to resume negotiation talks to forge a new constitution.

“We see benefits of the AKP inviting the CHP to the table to establish a dialogue. If it had not come up, then there would be an absence around this four-person table,” said Bahçeli, speaking at the opening ceremony of a politics and leadership school under his party’s umbrella in Ankara on March 5.

The AKP had set a six-month calendar for a parliamentary panel tasked with forging a new constitution, but the panel that started working on Feb. 4 was dissolved in mid-February after just three sessions.

The AKP and the CHP have traded accusations over the dissolving of the inter-party parliamentary panel, which consisted of three lawmakers from each political party, after the latter left the negotiation table on Feb. 16. CHP deputies argued at the time that MPs from the ruling party considered all subjects discussed under the umbrella of shifting the country’s parliamentary system to a presidential system, as repeatedly cited by leading figures from the ruling party as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“The MHP will contribute to enlightenment of the public within the world view and principles of the party, taking into account sensitivities regarding constitution, if any referendum is the case,” said Bahçeli, adding that the parties that have deputies in parliament should take part in negotiation talks in order to write a “healthy” constitution.