Mosul hostage diplomat gets into parliament on CHP ticket

ARDAHAN - Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Former Turkish consul-general Öztürk Yılmaz, who was among 49 people kidnapped by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for 101 days in Iraq’s Mosul and released in September 2014, has become a member of parliament on the Republican People’s Party (CHP) ticket, while also helping the party to increase its votes in the Nov. 1 polls. 

Yılmaz, whose last position was as Turkey’s ambassador to Tajikistan, had resigned from the post in early September to run for parliament from the CHP’s ranks. 

The CHP had placed Yılmaz as the party’s first row candidate in Turkey’s northeastern province of Ardahan, his hometown.

With Yılmaz’s nomination, the CHP received 28.7 percent of the votes at the polls on Nov. 1 in Ardahan, which marked an increase from the 22.4 percent achieved on June 7. 

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) received 36.5 percent of the total 56,095 valid votes in the province and thus secured sending Orhan Atalay to parliament. The AKP’s percentage during the June 7 polls was 25.8 percent, thus marking a substantial increase for the AKP at the polls just five months later. 

Speaking after the ballot boxes were counted, Yılmaz said he was happy for the CHP to have taken one of the two deputy spots from Ardahan. 

“Thus, the CHP will regain its seat, which it had lost at the June 7 elections, back,” Yılmaz said.