Devlet Bahçeli, leader of government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), addressed his party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara on Tuesday. The terror-free Türkiye initiative and the U.S.-Israel-Iran war dominated Bahçeli’s speech as he linked the two issues to each other.
The veteran politician stated that the ongoing war indicated that “no adversary power has a chance of success without first dissolving a people and a nation from within. It confirmed that our goal of a terror-free Türkiye is both a blessing from Allah and the wise reason of the Turkish nation’s noble and effective will across the tripod of history, culture and sovereignty."
The initiative launched in 2024 with a historic speech by Bahçeli and found support from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which forms the People’s Alliance along with the MHP. Bahçeli’s call to PKK jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan to order his group to lay down arms was followed by a landmark statement by Öcalan in February 2025, urging the PKK to dissolve itself. The PKK complied and is currently in the process of abandoning arms. Proponents of the initiative reason that disarming the PKK will cement unity between Turks and Kurds, the latter of whom were exploited by the PKK, claiming to fight for a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Türkiye.
“We have once again seen and demonstrated that our internal peace and atmosphere of tranquility, strengthened by national unity and brotherhood, are our greatest resistance and assurance. We are more eager than ever to rot, one by one, the seeds of discord that some seek to sow among us,” Bahçeli said on Tuesday.
Emphasizing that their goal is a "stronger Türkiye," Bahçeli added that “a new opportunity has arisen for our state to become a global power.”
"The attainment of a lasting, inclusive peace and a festive atmosphere for Türkiye and the countries of the region will be achieved primarily through solidarity and cooperation. We want wars to end in Turkic-Islamic countries. We can no longer tolerate the massacre of innocents, children, defenseless people, and civilians; we wish for this oppression to end. We are in an understanding and longing for the glory and honor of the crescent, the call of honor for unity and vitality to prevail in the skies, rather than the trails of missiles,” he said.
Bahçeli also lamented what he called the loss of legal function of the United Nations. “It is helpless and miserable,” he said, referring to inaction in the face of a U.S.-Israel-Iran war. He termed U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran as “unjust,” adding that reciprocal statements by the U.S., Israel and Iran undermined hopes for peace.
Reporting that the strike on Iran's strategically important South Pars Gas Field and the Natanz Nuclear Facility, followed by Iran’s retaliation against oil refineries in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel's nuclear sites at Arad and Dimona, has pushed tensions to a peak, Bahçeli said the world was going through a World War III scenario.
"Targeting Iran’s religious leaders and top figures with precision strikes not only expands hostility but also deepens conflicts and polarizations that will last for many years. Since Feb. 28, it has been understood that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an easy target. The people of Iran, standing by the regime and state leadership and uniting as one heart, have formed a virtual wall against the attacks.
Noting that Türkiye is sincerely pursuing peaceful solutions against the attacks by the U.S. and Israel targeting Iran, Bahçeli praised the government for its efforts to that extent.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan intensified diplomatic efforts Monday, holding separate calls with his Egyptian, Norwegian and Pakistani counterparts to coordinate international pressure to halt the war involving Iran, Turkish diplomatic sources said. Fidan’s conversations with Egypt's Badr Abdelatty and Norway's Espen Barth Eide focused on efforts aimed at stopping the Iranian war, the sources said. In another phone call with Pakistan's Ishaq Dar, the two ministers exchanged views on the latest situation in the war, the sources added.
Türkiye, Pakistan and Egypt passed messages between Washington and Tehran over the past two days to mediate talks, U.S.-based Axios reported Monday, citing an American source. Türkiye’s top diplomat was also engaged in phone diplomacy Sunday with his counterparts across the world, days after he joined a meeting of top diplomats of the Gulf countries on the conflict, which spilled over to the entire region. Türkiye, a neighbor of Iran and a NATO ally of the United States, has been keen on defusing the conflict.
Emphasizing that the international community must "stop watching the war from the sidelines," Bahçeli stated that every country, including some Islamic nations, should take inspiration from the "honorable, principled, and brave" stance of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Stating that the war must stop, guns must fall silent, and diplomacy must come to the fore, Bahçeli said Israel has turned into a death machine.
“The real regime change, the real management change, must take place in Israel. This should be the first agenda item of the U.S. president. Israel's penetration into the U.S. administration and its shaping of decision-making bodies, in one way or another, is a great danger and a direct insult to the American people,” he said.
