Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and the opposition's Republican People's Party leader Ozgur Ozel meeting in Ankara on May 2, 2024. Photo: AA
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet with the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel on Tuesday in CHP’s Ankara headquarters in a landmark visit, with drafting of a new constitution and appointment of trustees expected to be the main topics of discussion.
Ozel visited Erdogan last month, weeks after defeating the president’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Turkish local elections. Erdogan is set to return the visit on Tuesday, his first to the CHP headquarters in 18 years.
The two leaders are expected to discuss a range of topics in the meeting including drafting a new constitution, according to Cumhuriyet, an outlet close to the opposition party, which cited unnamed CHP officials.
Following his win in last year’s presidential election, Erdogan has been openly critical of the constitution and said it is time for a new one. The current Turkish constitution was created in 1982 following a military coup. Despite amendments made in 2017 that swapped the country’s parliamentary system for a presidential one, Erdogan remains unhappy with what he has labeled the “1982 coup constitution.”
The appointment of trustees (state-linked administrators) in the Kurdish province of Hakkari (Colemerg) is set to be another topic of discussion during Erdogan and Ozel’s meeting.
Earlier this month the Turkish interior ministry dismissed Mehmet Siddik Akis, the pro-Kurdish mayor of Hakkari from his position and replaced him with a state-linked trustee from the AKP for alleged membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Days later Akis was handed 19 years and six months prison time by a Turkish court.
Erdogan has voiced support for the court ruling against the Kurdish mayor. Ozel, however, has been openly critical of the decision to remove Akis.
“We reject the operation conducted on the Hakkari municipality in the early hours of the morning, resulting in the detention of the mayor and the appointment of a trustee,” Ozel said on X hours after the decision.
Akis received the highest number of votes during March 31’s municipal mayoral elections in Hakkari, obtaining around 49 percent of the votes.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) scored several significant victories in the March election. It took Diyarbakir, Mardin, Batman, Siirt, Hakkari, Van, and Igdir provinces, which its sister party, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), won in 2019 only to have their mayors removed because of alleged links with Kurdish rebels and replaced by state-appointed administrators.
The CHP on the other hand, reclaimed the major municipalities of Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya, and Izmir, while taking the majority of the municipalities overall in the country.
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