The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the ruling bloc are prepared to seek consensus with other political actors on key national issues, including the government’s anti-terror campaign, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on June 27.
“Türkiye lost years and energy in the past with unnecessary debates and conflicts. They talked about right and left, Alevi-Sunni, Kurd-Turk. They made this nation pay a very heavy price for years. We no longer want our nation to pay new prices,” Erdoğan said at the AKP’s annual consultation summit.
He was addressing ministers and lawmakers at the gathering in the northwestern province of Sakarya.
“Today, it is time to leave these behind together. Of course, we will have differences of opinion; these are our strengths. However, it is possible to increase our common ground, and we can achieve this,” he said.
“As the AKP and the People’s Alliance, we are ready to reach a consensus and expand our common ground on national issues such as our terror-free Türkiye process, foreign policy, security and the advancement of rights and freedoms.”
Erdoğan was referring to the government’s peace initiative aimed at ending the decades-long conflict with PKK. Under the process, the terror group previously announced a ceasefire before later declaring its intention to dissolve itself and lay down its arms.
“For 25 years, when we founded the AKP, we took special care to ensure that all the colors of Türkiye were represented within our party,” he said. “There is room for everyone under our roof. Our hearts are as vast as the ocean.”
Erdoğan also used his speech to renew criticism against the ongoing leadership within the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
“We are not a party to this conflict, this internal strife within the CHP. They set traps for one another, dug each other’s graves and filed complaints against one another. They reached this point not because of us, not because of the judiciary, but through their own hands and their own actions,” he said.
“Nevertheless, our desire and hope are as follows: It would undoubtedly be beneficial, both for Turkish politics and for Türkiye as a whole, for the CHP to rid itself of these external forces within its ranks.”
The dispute followed a court ruling last month that annulled the CHP’s 2023 convention over alleged irregularities, removing Özgür Özel’s leadership and reinstating chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his team.
“It is abundantly clear that Türkiye needs a main opposition party free from any form of tutelage,” Erdoğan said. “An opposition that does not draw its strength from the grassroots, from the voters, but instead from certain external powers with designs on Türkiye, ill-gotten gains, dirty money and ill-gotten wealth — such an opposition does not benefit Türkiye, it harms it.”
