VIENNA
The joint leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party's (HDP) on Thursday evening defended his party’s willingness to enter a caretaker government other opposition parties have rejected.
Selahattin Demirtas told supporters in Vienna that he did not want to spurn the chance to take seats in the Cabinet that will oversee the running of Turkey before a Nov. 1 general election.
“Why would we leave the ministries for the AK Party?” he asked, referring to the Justice and Development Party that ruled Turkey for 13 years until it lost its majority in the June 7 election, forcing a rerun after it was unable to form a coalition.
“We will take the chairs of those ministries.”
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, also chairman of the AK Party, is in the process of trying to form an interim government but his overtures have been rejected by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Demirtas, who was in Vienna to begin the HDP’s election campaign and meet Austrian politicians including President Heinz Fischer, said government ministries were not the property of the AK Party.
Addressing a crowd that Kurdish media numbered at around 5,000, Demirtas said his party was doing all it could to stem the daily killings that have gripped southern and eastern Turkey over recent weeks.
On July 20, a suicide bomber killed 33 pro-Kurdish activists in Suruc, southern Turkey, sparking a renewal of the 30-year conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces.
Accusing the AK Party of doing nothing to achieve peace, Demirtas said: “We will be hot on their trail. When they try to opt for fighting or slaughtering or take unjust and unfair decisions, the ministers from the HDP will be there.
“We told them 'We will not let you make war,' therefore we will be in the ministerial Cabinet.”
Three HDP lawmakers have been invited to join the provisional government. One, Istanbul deputy Levent Tuzel, has refused to join.
Demirtas called for Turks outside the Kurdish-majority provinces in the southeast to press for a return to talks aimed at ending the conflict.
“Everyone should tell the government 'You cannot do this,' once again with Gezi spirit,” he said, citing the birthplace of the nationwide anti-government protests of 2013. “Turks and Kurds should join hands to end the battle. It is the only way.”
