President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for cooperating with the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), as he said Türkiye will continue to fight all threats against its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Speaking at a commemoration ceremony for late Turkish poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy – the writer of the Turkish national anthem – in the capital Ankara on Monday, Erdoğan said parties that use the same rhetoric as the PKK terrorists are doomed to be treated like terrorists. He noted that the CHP’s election alliance with the YSP went beyond a partnership based on interests and has become an ideological merging.
“We will never allow them to lay an ambush for the people and our national will using the facilities of our democracy,” the president said, in reference to YSP’s pro-PKK stance, as he called them “political puppets” without their own will.
“We are determined to maintain our fight against those who support terrorism by exploiting legislative immunity on the political and legal grounds,” Erdoğan said.
The YSP was among those not joining the AK Party and three other parties in Parliament, which issued a joint declaration last week to condemn the PKK over the killing of 12 soldiers.
The declaration by representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Good Party (IP) and the Felicity Party (SP) condemned attacks targeting "our unity and integrity, peace and security."
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which sought an alliance with the YSP in upcoming municipal and past presidential elections, also abstained from joining the declaration because it said it was insufficient to eradicate terrorism. The CHP, however, faced a barrage of criticism for not openly naming the PKK as the group responsible for the killings of soldiers in a separate statement it issued later. Party Chairperson Özgür Özel was confronted by an angry crowd asking him to leave while he was attending the funeral of one of the martyred soldiers on Sunday.
Authorities vowed to retaliate against the killings, and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) announced a series of airstrikes and operations to destroy PKK targets in Iraq and Syria, two immediate neighbors where the group finds haven.
