Turkey’s HDP says Erdogan must apologize for ‘insulting Kurdish values, existence’
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must apologize for recent comments in which he “insulted Kurdish values and existence,” the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said this week.
“Wherever he goes, the AKP leader Erdogan attacks Kurdish people’s values and existence, and insults them,” read a statement from the HDP.
It came in response to Erdogan’s recent praise for the role of trustees – officials appointed by the government to replace elected mayors and other officials who have been convicted of crimes.
Most of the HDP’s elected mayors have been replaced with pro-AKP trustees since the July 2016 attempted coup.
The party also criticized Erdogan for reportedly describing the trustees as “measures of virtue.” In response, the HDP accused the trustees of corruption and theft.
If the HDP wants Kurdistan they can go to the Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Erdogan said Tuesday in response to earlier comments by HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli, who claimed: “We will win in Kurdistan and will make the AKP and MHP [Nationalist Movement Party] lose” in Turkey’s western cities in the upcoming local elections.
Commenting on Erdogan’s speech, the HDP said: “Virtue is not saying something yesterday and denying it today,” referring to Erdogan’s 2013 speech in which he defended the use of the word “Kurdistan” during a meeting with then-Kurdistan Region president Masoud Barzani in Diyarbakir.
In the AKP group meeting in 2013 Erdogan attacked opposition parties for criticizing him for using the word Kurdistan, asking them to read the minutes of the initial meetings of the Turkish parliament a century ago.
“Those who do not know their own history cannot talk about anything more than ignorance and darkness. When they go back to the Ottomans [era], they will see that east-southeast is Kurdistan,” Erdogan said in the meeting.
His usage of “Kurdistan” was first since he assumed power in 2002. He was also the first Turkish president to refer to Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq as “Kurdistan Region.”
Turkey holds local elections on March 31. HDP is running as part of an alliance with seven other Kurdish and left-wing parties.
The use of the term “Kurdistan” is vigorously rejected due to its alleged political implications by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize the existence of a “Turkish Kurdistan” Southeast Turkey. The word ‘KURDISTAN’ is strongly prohibited in Turkey.
The Kurds remain the world’s largest stateless ethnic group. Estimated to over 40 million Kurds live in “Greater Kurdistan” which covers an area as big as France.
More than 22.5 million Kurds live in southeastern Turkey (northern Kurdistan), estimated to over 12 million Kurds live in northwestern Iran (Eastern Kurdistan), nearly 3 million Kurds live in northern Syria (Western Kurdistan) and 4 million Kurds live in northern Iraq (Southern Kurdistan).
Several HDP leaders, including its former co-chair and presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas, have been arrested and detained accused of sponsoring terrorism – allegations they deny.
Read more about Kurdish language in Turkey
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