Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Özgür Özel was in the northwestern city of Edirne on Monday where he visited two imprisoned men from a party associated with the terrorist group PKK.
Özel’s visit precedes a planned tour of six provinces in southeastern Türkiye where the party’s spiritual successor scored big gains in municipal elections in March. Accompanied by lawmakers from his party, Özel first visited Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair of the now-defunct Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) before meeting the former mayor of Diyarbakır province Selçuk Mızraklı from the same party.
Although it repeatedly condemned PKK’s actions, CHP, especially under Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, did not shy away from reaching out to HDP and its successor Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). Political pundits say DEM voters endorsing CHP in certain municipalities where the party had little chance of winning seats alone may have helped the main opposition to win mayoralty in the March elections.
Speaking to reporters after his visit, Özel said his planned six-city tour of southeastern provinces would be lacking without visiting Demirtaş. “All actors are important if Türkiye would resolve a problem,” he said. He was referring to the resolution of the so-called “Kurdish question.” PKK has long used the lack of rights for the country’s Kurdish community as a pretext for its campaign of violence. The government sought to put an end to this by launching “reconciliation process” but the process was derailed by PKK ended a brief lull in its attacks by targeting security forces and civilians in a string of attacks in the southeast.
Özel’s visit comes amid an apparent change in the stance of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli’s unprecedented handshake with DEM officials at the parliament earlier this month and the AK Party’s support for MHP’s outreach is interpreted as a turning point in Turkish politics. However, both parties affirmed that their stance against PKK and the political entities defending them were not changed.
Selahattin Demirtaş, who earlier ran as presidential candidate against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been in prison since 2016 for spreading terrorist propaganda and having ties to PKK. He was among several HDP officials sentenced in May by a Turkish court over the notorious 2014 riots the party sparked. Two days of riots in several Turkish cities led to the killings of 37 people, including Yasin Börü, a 16-year-old boy who was murdered while collecting donations in southeastern Türkiye. Börü has been a symbol of victims of violence in the hands of supporters of PKK and HDP.
