PM lashes out at opposition parties

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the opposition parties Friday for their negative approach toward the government’s Kurdish move to end the 25-year terror problem.

Erdoğan also had harsh words for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, for not apologizing for the remarks of former diplomat and CHP Secretary-General Onur Öymen regarding the Alevi town of Dersim, the former name of the southeastern province of Tunceli.

“[The opposition] who call us separatist [for our Kurdish move] in fact should look at themselves in the mirror. They are the real separatists. Because if you can’t integrate the citizens of 81 provinces, then you can’t call yourselves Turkey’s party,” Erdoğan said in his address to the presidents of his party’s provincial units in Ankara.

“Instead of apologizing [for Öymen’s remarks], [the CHP] stood behind him,” the prime minister added. “They abused Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.”

Öymen faced a fierce opposition reaction to his words in a Nov. 10 session of Parliament where the government-led Kurdish initiative was being debated. “Didn’t mothers cry in the Dersim uprising? Nobody stood up and said, ‘Don’t let the mothers cry, stop this struggle,’” Öymen said. He was accused of defending the 1937 to 1938 massacre in Tunceli.

Erdoğan also criticized the statements and manners of the opposition CHP and the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, in last week’s parliamentary sessions. “My discipline doesn’t let me repeat those words here and I thus call on all families to keep their children away from the TV when the opposition leaders speak,” he said. “Neither I nor my party deputies will use the same language and we will immediately respond to detractions leveled against us.”

CHP’s earlier reports

The CHP’s 1996 report on Tunceli and 1999 report on Turkey’s Southeast likewise have been met with criticism from Erdoğan, who said the reports featured some proposals his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, could not accept.

“Having the right to have education in a native language in private schools; establishment of institutes that will research the Kurdish language and culture... They are not the proposals offered by me but by the CHP’s 1996 report on Tunceli, which says all bans on those issues should be lifted,” Erdoğan said. “These reports were signed by CHP leader Deniz Baykal, so how can Baykal call our Kurdish move separatist and come up with new criticism concerning our fresh steps on the Kurdish language?”

Referring to the opposition criticism that says the AKP is betraying the country and cooperating with terrorists via its Kurdish move, Erdoğan said: “Those who can’t communicate with the country’s East and Southeast want to abuse the rest of Turkey’s regions for political gain. I am now asking you: Doesn’t it mean a provocation to make a mother of a martyr chant a slogan in the Parliament?”

Criticizing the approach of MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, Erdoğan said the policies of Alparslan Türkeş, the founder and former leader of the MHP, were much more tolerant, libertarian and constructive than those of his heirs today.

The prime minister said previous governments had solely held debates on the country’s crucial problems, including the Kurdish issue, and couldn’t produce permanent solutions for them. “Continuation of the status quo means more martyrs, blood, death and grieving mothers,” Erdoğan said. “Those who want the continuation of the status quo actually become a party to the injustice and inequity.”