Jailed Kurdish leader calls for talks with Turkey’s ruling AKP

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas on Friday called for talks between the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), describing the lack of contact between the two sides as a “great shortcoming.”

“I don't know if there is any traffic between the DEM Party and the AKP, but if not, it's a great shortcoming for both parties,” Demirtas said in a public letter posted by his wife Basak Demirtas on X.

“All parties should be able to discuss and negotiate to resolve the country's and society's problems…given the current situation, it is a duty, a responsibility,” he added.

Next month, Turkey will hold hotly contested municipal elections. DEM Party is hoping for a better performance after its poor showing in last year’s parliamentary vote. AKP is looking to regain control of major cities like Istanbul that it lost in the last municipal election.

Two days before releasing her husband’s statement, Basak Demirtas withdrew her name from the running for DEM Party’s candidate for mayor of Istanbul. She had been considered a frontrunner for the spot, but withdrew saying that she took the decision following talks with the party. 

There were speculations that she had made a deal to run for the Istanbul mayoralty, taking votes away from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) incumbent Ekrem Imamoglu and increasing the chances of an AKP win in the city, in exchange for her husband’s release from jail.

Selahattin Demirtas, who has been in jail since 2016 on terror-related charges, dismissed this theory, saying his wife’s candidacy was wrongly considered a “transaction” due to the atmosphere in Turkey that sees every political move as a “trade.”

“Those who always seek deceit beneath every political move assume everyone to be like themselves. It never occurs to anyone that a political move might have been made for a noble purpose,” Demirtas said.

Basak Demirtas’s candidacy was aimed at “creating a political atmosphere where polarization, division, and enmity cease to exist, and everyone can engage in dialogue,” he added.

DEM Party spokesperson Aysegul Dogan on Friday announced the party’s co-candidates in Istanbul are current member of parliament Meral Danis and former MP Murat Cepni. DEM Party follows a gender-balanced co-chairing system.

In the 2019 local elections, DEM Party’s predecessor HDP decided not to field candidates in the major cities of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya. As a result of this strategy, the ruling AKP lost all four to the opposition CHP, marking the first time in 15 years that the AKP lost in Ankara and Istanbul.

DEM Party will be competing for Istanbul’s votes on March 31 against CHP’s Imamoglu, Ultranationalist IYI Party’s candidate Bugra Kavuncu, and AKP’s candidate Murat Kurum.