Zafer Party's 'raising the stakes' criticism of CHP: 'He has put Turkey on a poker table'

The Zafer Party held its weekly press conference following the call made by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli from the parliamentary podium regarding PKK leader Öcalan and the subsequent statements that followed.

'NO ONE KNOWS THE CONTENT'

Zafer Party Spokesperson Azmi Karamahmutoğlu included the following remarks in the statement:

As the Republic of Turkey, we have been upholding this legacy for 101 years. 101 years ago, on October 29, Mustafa Kemal showed how a state could be proposed to a nation, a people, and a society, and through what struggles such a state proposal could be made and accepted. However, the chairman of the political party he founded has shown the recklessness and audacity, 101 years later, to separate a portion, a segment of the people from within the nation and offer them a state.

The policy that MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli conceptualized and presented as the 2023 vision was later adopted by Justice and Development Party Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and was constantly promoted as the 2023 vision. After the statements made by both Devlet Bahçeli and AKP Chairman Tayyip Erdoğan, we have come to understand that their 2023 Turkey vision is actually aimed at completely changing and transforming Republican Turkey. Because the Republic of Turkey of 101 years ago was founded as a unitary, singular state.

The attacks launched against the first three articles, which are the guarantee of its foundation, are also under attack starting from the number two in the state protocol, the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. We discussed in our press conference last week that they want to create a constitution tailored to an individual. Both the Nationalist Movement Party has prepared a draft constitution proposal and locked it in its safe. No one knows its content. The MHP Presidential Council does not know either.

'THEY ARE MEASURING THE DEPTH OF THE WATER'

We understand that this constitutional amendment is a constitutional amendment tailored to an individual. We see, experience, and know that our country is being dragged into discussions of a constitutional amendment that includes both a personal pardon for the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving his sentence in İmralı as a terror convict, and also contains changes tailored to an individual that will pave the way for President Tayyip Erdoğan, who is in his second and final term in the Presidency, to be elected again and again, and that this has been constantly discussed since the last general election. These issues I have pointed out will be constantly under our attention and scrutiny.

The draft constitution that Devlet Bahçeli prepared after his statement on Abdullah Öcalan worries millions of Turkish nationalists like us and leaves us in anxiety. Because no one has any information about its content. The reason for this anxiety is this: It is possible that the Turkish voter might fall into the error of misunderstanding an issue. That is this: The Turkish voter might think that this policy produced by the administration under Bahçeli's chairmanship—that is, the release of the villain in İmralı and, on top of that, bringing him to parliament to speak—is a product of the traditional policy of Turkish nationalist politics. However, this situation is not like that at all.

It will fight tooth and nail to the end. Because it is clear that this is not a remark thrown out just like that. This is not a remark made just to take a measurement. This is an effort made to mature this process over the next 3-5 years and to prepare the public for this result. For now, they are measuring the depth of the water.

'POKER TABLE' CRITICISM OF ÖZGÜR ÖZEL

Our country, which has this government and alliance, also has a main opposition. Unfortunately, this main opposition has fallen in line with the government and the alliance that forms the government, and they are competing with them to change and transform Republican Turkey in its 101st year. So much so that the new chairman of the CHP, Özgür Özel, who has put Atatürk's Turkey on the gambling table as a stake, is saying with joy, pride, and excitement from the microphones and the podium that he is raising the stakes and offering a state to the Kurds.

While taking his seat as the Chairman of the Republican People's Party, founded by Mustafa Kemal, Özgür Özel has gone down the path of partitioning Atatürk's Turkey and has put Turkey on a poker table by saying, "I am offering a state to the Kurds." Özgür Özel, all citizens of the Republic of Turkey are the owners of the Republic of Turkey State. This state is already the property of everyone who holds the citizenship of Republican Turkey. This situation only leads Turkey to Yugoslavization and Lebanonization.

'THE PKK'S DEMAND IS NOT THE RELEASE OF ITS FOUNDING LEADER'

Unfortunately, the Republican People's Party has lost and abandoned its opposition stance as the main opposition party regarding new constitutional efforts and bargaining with the PKK, and has moved to the side of the government. As a result of the conversations CHP Chairman Özel has had with the palace since the congress where he seized the chairmanship, the policies they named as softening and normalization have been understood as the continuation of the status quo, the continuation of the established order, and the continuation of the Justice and Development Party government and AKP Chairman Tayyip Erdoğan's Presidency.

We have both an opposition mentality and a government mentality that think they can end terrorism by meeting the demands of Kurdish-separatist terror. Unfortunately, Devlet Bahçeli's MHP, along with the AKP government, is falling into the error and mistake of thinking they can end terrorism by negotiating with the PKK and granting freedom to the PKK's founding villain. The PKK's demand is not the release of its founding leader.

REFERENCE TO THE DEATH PENALTY

Whatever the PKK has demanded and promised to this day, it continues on its path by saying to the public it has pressured, suppressed, and terrorized through terror and violence: "I am extracting things with guns, fire, and blood, and giving them to you; give me more support, let me shed more blood, commit more violence, more terror, and let me get more." Among its other promises, it is there, it is before all of our eyes. It is waving a rag in its hand. It has declared a flag. It has promised an imaginary country with drawn borders. It has laid out maps as written and drawn. In other words, it has promised a country whose borders it has drawn itself, even if it is a utopia, and even if this utopia has been turned into a great dystopia for them by the Turks and will be turned into one from now on.

Abdullah Öcalan was going to pay for his crimes with his life; he was going to be executed. At the very least, the hearts of our martyrs and veterans would have cooled a little. But something unexpected happened. Unfortunately, the current leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahçeli, signed the decision that Abdullah Öcalan would not be executed as Deputy Prime Minister at the end of an eight-hour meeting, a persuasion meeting, an effort of persuasion.

'MILLIONS IN THE MHP ARE REACTIVE'

The most recent one is the conflict process that took place at TUSAŞ. On one side, a lady who went to receive the flowers sent by her husband, engineers, security guards, people ensuring the security of that place, civilians, and on the other side, terrorists attacking them with bombs and machine guns; Özgür Özel calls these two sides a conflict process. A conflict process. They started killing with baby massacres to be intimidating in the terror attacks that the PKK started to suppress the people of the region, especially to suppress the people in the Southeast region. Now, CHP Chairman Özgür Özel calls terrorist attacks where babies are killed a conflict process. A minibus that tourists boarded in Kuşadası was blown up, tourists died. A conflict process. On one side of the conflict are PKK terrorists...

You have poisoned. You have been poisoned in thought. After you were poisoned in thought by ethnicist, Kurdish chauvinism, you also poisoned the cadres of the Republican People's Party. Now you continue to poison Turkish politics and Turkish society.

Millions in the MHP are reactive to this situation. There is no need for 10 thousand, 100 thousand, 7 people, or 9 people to resign from the MHP. It is enough for just one person to resign from the Nationalist Movement Party.

'WHICH TURKISH CITIZEN WITH A KURDISH IDENTITY CAN YOU INCLUDE IN THE TURKISH NATION FAMILY?'

Everyone who is bound to the Republic of Turkey by the bond of citizenship is a Turk by the definition of Article 66 of our constitution. Article 66 of the Constitution says this. Everyone who is bound to the Republic of Turkey State by the bond of citizenship is a Turk.

This statement made by Devlet Bahçeli, the statement that the brotherhood of Turks and Kurds is a necessity, means dividing this nation into two different nations as Turks and Kurds. Yes, this is what it is. Turks with a Kurdish sub-identity object to this situation. Millions of them object. First and foremost, Turks with a Kurdish sub-identity who take their place in the ranks of Turkish nationalist politics and Turkish nationalist thought object to this situation. There are also friends of ours among them who are in the MHP Headquarters and the Presidential Council. So, after you divide and separate them as Kurds and Turks, after you define Kurds as a separate nation, which Turkish citizen with a Kurdish identity can you include in the Turkish nation family?

The Justice and Development Party should not think that by pulling Devlet Bahçeli's MHP to its side and making it an ally, it has made Turkish Nationalist politics its ally. Turkish Nationalist politics is not in solidarity and cooperation with it.

Because the representation of Turkish nationalism is not solely and exclusively in Devlet Bahçeli's MHP. The representation of Turkish nationalist politics and thought now exists in other parties as well. The most prominent of these is the Zafer Party. It is the Zafer Party under the Chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Ümit Özdağ.