Political parties in Türkiye exchanged greeting visits on the second day of Eid al-Fitr on March 21, carrying on a long-standing political tradition in the capital.
Reflections of the ongoing war between Iran and the U.S. and Israel, the government’s “terror-free Türkiye” initiative and the economy dominated the political traffic during the festivities.
The ruling Development and Justice Party (AKP) exchanged greetings with 14 parties, the main opposition Republican People’s Party with 17 and the Nationalist Movement Part (MHP) with seven.
The CHP once again did not hold a holiday meeting with the AKP. The Felicity Party conducted the highest number of visits, meeting with 20 parties, while the AKP returned the visits the same day with two separate delegations.
During the CHP’s Eid greeting meetings, the agenda also included the ongoing investigation targeting the CHP-run municipalities.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has been jailed pending trial since March 2025 over corruption charges, along with several other CHP mayor and senior municipal officials. The main opposition slams the probes as politically motivated.
Speaking during the CHP delegation’s visit, the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Deputy Co-Chair Yüksel Mutlu said her party did not approve of the operations against the CHP and its municipalities.
CHP Deputy Chair Serkan Özcan, meanwhile, said that former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ have remained imprisoned for nearly a decade “simply because they were influential leaders of a political party.”
The MHP and DEM Party, which exchanged holiday greetings for the first time last year, again paid reciprocal visits this Eid.
A delegation led by MHP Deputy Chair Sadir Durmaz met with a DEM Party delegation headed by Deputy Co-Chair Öztürk Türkdoğan.
Türkdoğan said the party hoped the peace and democratic process would advance through concrete legal arrangements, adding that they expected steps toward legislation and recognition of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s role in the process.
He said the “status issue” mentioned by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli could also be resolved once a legal framework is established.
Durmaz said their party leader had delivered “very important messages” regarding the “terror-free Türkiye” process, stressing the importance of unity, solidarity and fraternity within the country.
He added that nations lacking such cohesion often face severe difficulties, citing examples from the region, and said the MHP has been the most consistent party on this issue.
A notable exchange also took place during the CHP–MHP holiday meeting.
CHP Deputy Chair Deniz Yavuzyılmaz drew parallels between İmamoğlu’s arrest and the imprisonment of MHP founding leader Alparslan Türkeş, saying that just as the treatment of Türkeş in the past was wrong, current actions against CHP figures were problematic for democracy.
“From our perspective, the point reached by these political operations resembles a coup,” he said.
MHP rejected the comparison, saying there was a fundamental difference between today’s developments and the detention of Türkeş.
