President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Meral Akşener, the former chair of the opposition Good Party (IP) on Wednesday in a surprise meeting at the Presidential Complex in Türkiye's capital Ankara.
It was the first formal meeting between two politicians. Last month, a group of senior officials from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) visited Akşener’s successor Müsavat Dervişoğlu.
Akşener has been out of the spotlight since she stepped down from her post and Dervişoğlu won the race for top chair in the opposition party following the March 31 municipal elections.
A former interior minister, Akşener was a prominent name in the government’s ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) before she split with other lawmakers and founded IP in 2017. Under Akşener, IP endorsed the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu against Erdoğan in the 2023 presidential elections. Kılıçdaroğlu himself lost his seat in an intra-party election after he conceded defeat to Erdoğan in the presidential race. IP was a member of the six-party alliance against Erdoğan in 2023 while Akşener briefly left it over disagreement on the bloc’s candidate.
