Meral Akşener, chair of the Good Party (IP), reprimanded “anyone doing business with the PKK” in a speech on Monday despite the fact that the terrorist group openly called for support for the opposition bloc’s candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu earlier.
“May Allah curse those siding with the PKK,” Akşener said at the opening of the coordination center of her party for the May 14 elections in the central province of Nevşehir, a stronghold of nationalists. “May Allah strike those hurting the memory of our martyrs,” she added, referring to people killed by the terrorist group in its decadeslong campaign of violence.
Akşener runs the second biggest party in the six-party opposition bloc led by Republican People’s Party (CHP). The bloc nominated CHP head Kılıçdaroğlu as the presidential candidate for the upcoming elections.
Since early March, when the six-party opposition bloc Nation Alliance named Kılıçdaroğlu as its candidate, eight PKK ringleaders in Qandil have voiced express support for Kılıçdaroğlu and the alliance. The Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq are the PKK’s stronghold from where it devises and launches attacks on Türkiye and nearby cities and towns.
After the bloc confirmed his candidacy against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu rushed to pay a visit to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a party known for its affiliation with the PKK and currently fighting a ban lawsuit because of it. The party is often shunned for “acting as the political extension of the PKK.”
While not officially a part of the bloc, the HDP has given Kılıçdaroğlu its tacit support recently, announcing it would endorse him while fielding its candidates, under the name of Green Left Party (YSP), in the parliamentary elections. Having won over 10% of the vote in the past three national elections, the HDP was widely seen as a kingmaker in the tight race, despite the increasing threat of being barred from Türkiye’s politics.
On top of much criticism by rivals and partners alike for his rapprochement with the party, Kılıçdaroğlu has since garnered the praise of so-called PKK seniors, Cemil Bayık, Murat Karayılan, Mustafa Karasu, Duran Kalkan, Bese Hozat, Helin Ümit, Sabri Ok and Remzi Kartal. All invariably claimed, “Our alliance must end the AK Party-MHP fascism,” referring to the People’s Alliance, an election bloc headlined by Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in partnership with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Great Union Party (BBP) and the recent additions – New Welfare Party (YRP) and the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR).
“They wanted to take down the ‘table for six,’ but the alliance did not splinter. So it’s now time for our leader Öcalan to be free,” Karayılan, one of the PKK’s co-founders, was quoted as saying, while another co-Chair Bese Hozat claimed May 14 elections had “historical significance.” “We find the HDP’s stance of supporting the Nation Alliance valuable, important, and meaningful. It will directly affect the outcome of the elections. So we support this stance,” Hozat told a PKK-affiliated channel last month.
Erdoğan has recently slammed the collusion between the sides, saying, “The CHP and their partners have surrendered to the HDP and PKK’s divisive and anti-Türkiye agenda,” and expressed faith that “the Turkish nation will not let terrorist supporters emerge victorious in the elections.”
The PKK – designated as a terrorist organization in the United States, the European Union and Türkiye – has been waging a bloody terrorist campaign against Türkiye for four decades, attacking security personnel and civilians. It has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people since 1984, with its massacres peaking, especially in the 1990s.
Akşener, whose party parted ways with Yavuz Ağıralioğlu, a prominent lawmaker critical of the opposition’s ties to HDP who resigned earlier, said she never aligned with the PKK in her life in her speech in Nevşehir.
