Deputy chairman addresses MHP instead of Bahçeli

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party’s (MHP) deputy chairman Oktay Vural replaced his leader, Devlet Bahçeli, who is still recovering from a heart surgery, for the first time at the party’s weekly group meeting at parliament on Jan. 26. 

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli had a scheduled, preventative open-heart surgery on Jan. 20. 

This is the first replacement to occur since Bahçeli took the leadership of the MHP in 1997.

Turkey is under a “merciless diplomatic, armed and political offense,” Vural said in his address, after briefing the MPs on Bahçeli’s health condition. 

“Yesterday’s colonialist intellectuals, today’s global powers’ hired pens and [Kurdistan Workers’ Party – PKK] supporters are as effective today as were they in the past,” he said. 

“Representatives of yesterday’s big powers are attacking to realize their big dreams. But I am addressing my compatriots: Be sure that the biggest power to stand against this helpless situation and against the attacks, which if continued will drag the country and the nation into big catastrophes, is the national identity, national will, national spirit and hence, the Nationalist Movement Party,” Vural said.

Vural also touched on his party’s refusal to meet with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who held talks with opposition parties beside President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last week, saying that the party was “against discussing Turkey’s issues around a foreign statesman with people of a certain mentality, as we also stated that such a round-table setting is not line with the political idea and stance that the MHP represents.”