Erdogan’s ultranationalist ally calls to shut down pro-Kurdish party

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The leader of the ultranationalist ally of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) went on a tirade on Tuesday, calling for the shutdown of the country’s pro-Kurdish party, and stripping its MPs’ parliamentary status.

Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said a “legal burial” of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democratic Party (DEM Party) was imperative for peace in Turkey.

“There will be no peace in Turkey unless DEM [party] is legally buried,” said Bahceli, speaking at the party’s parliamentary bloc meeting in Ankara.

Bahceli’s fueled comments come days after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers in the Kurdistan Region’s mountainous areas.

Bahceli also attacked the DEM party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan, who said on Saturday during a meeting in a party provincial congress in Dersim (Tunceli), that as long as the Kurdish issue and the isolation on PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan continues, Turkey will not find peace. Without mentioning his name, Bahceli described Bakirhan as a “dishonorable” man.

“The increased presence of DEM [party], which is the night vision binoculars of the PKK, in the Turkish parliament, could escalate societal and political tension to uncontrollable levels,” Bahceli said.

Bahceli suggested cutting the funds of the DEM party and the salaries of its MPs, and the money be paid to the families of the soldiers killed in the fight against PKK and the country’s counterterrorism units.

He also asked to dissolve the impunity of the MPs who “are proven to have aided and abetted” what he labeled “terrorism”, and promptly bring them to court.

DEM party in a statement on Sunday expressed its grief over the “heavy loss of lives” during the clashes over the previous days and called for a “democratic and peaceful” solution that gets at the root of the problem - the “century-long unresolved Kurdish issue.”

A day after the PKK attack in the Kurdistan Region, Turkish security forces detained 42 members of the DEM party in Diyarbakir (Amed), accusing them of “acting against the law.” 

DEM party, and its pro-Kurdish predecessors, are widely accused by its rivals within Turkey of being the political extension of the PKK.

In 2021, Turkey’s chief prosecutor filed a lawsuit in the country’s Constitutional Court seeking the dissolution of the then-leading pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for alleged links to the PKK.

In March HDP decided to enter Turkey’s parliamentary elections under the umbrella of the Green Left Party, in case the party's closure materialized. In October the Green Left Party was renamed Peoples’ Equality and Democratic Party (HEDEP), and in December it changed its acronym to DEM Party.