Breaking News: Call from Özgür Özel regarding the new peace process! He addressed Numan Kurtulmuş

Political parties' group meetings have begun in the new week. CHP leader Özgür Özel made statements at his party's group meeting.

Before starting the group meeting, Özgür Özel pinned a party badge on Adnan Beker, who joined the CHP from the İYİ Party.

We are holding our party's group meeting https://t.co/oQPQ7oniQ2

— Özgür Özel (@eczozgurozel) March 4, 2025

Highlights from Özel's statements are as follows:

"We learned with great sadness the news of the passing of the Great Master Edip Akbayram last Sunday evening. At this very moment, many of our fellow deputies, our Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, our mayors, and our provincial organization are at the funeral ceremony. Edip Akbayram was not only a musician and an artist who left a mark on each of our lives with his songs, but also a fighter who set an example for us with his life. He always told the story of the worker, the laborer, and the oppressed. In his own words, he was the melodic voice of the oppressed. He was an artist of the Republic. He drew his courage from the people. That is why he had the courage to refuse the award of the FETÖ organization at a time when everyone was chasing after them as 'hocaefendi'. He dedicated his 'Türküler Yanmaz' album to Madımak. He was not a person of every era. He was always on the side of humanity in every era.

Everyone in this hall, whenever we stumbled or faltered, we always got back up with one of his songs. We lost cities, districts. We lost big cities from time to time. We lost elections. 'Believe, children,' he said. 'Believe, we will steer the engines into the blue.' 'We will see beautiful days,' he said. We got up from where we fell. We held each other's hands. We stood up. And then, Edip brother was proven right. Wasn't he? Didn't we see beautiful days in Ankara? Didn't we see beautiful days in Istanbul? Believe, children, believe we will see beautiful days and together we will steer the engines into the blue. We will see beautiful days in Turkey too. Edip brother, we promise you. Greetings to you. We will see beautiful days and we will come into your presence once more like this."

445 WOMEN MURDERED IN 2024

I greeted them at the opening. Today, working women from all over the country are among us. First and foremost, mothers of martyrs, veterans, their spouses, mothers with disabled children, farmer women, retired women, cooperative women, and disaster-affected women are in our hall, and each of them rushed here to show the solidarity they have shown throughout the year on the Tuesday before March 8th, with the Republican People's Party, which voices their troubles from this podium every week and has made this podium their own.

They are welcome. I bow with respect before all of you. Furthermore, this group has always stood by the struggles of the Polonez workers, the working women at Agrobay Greenhouse, the working women at Perfetti Van Melle, the women's struggle at the Mersin Tarsus vegetable and fruit market, and the women who sweat in the Organized Industrial Zone of Sakarya over the last year.

From now on, we will continue to stand by those who are wronged, those who struggle, and by the women's struggle. Turkey is at a historic peak in broad-defined female unemployment at 38 percent. That is, today, 38 out of 100 women in Turkey are unemployed. The rate of women working in informal jobs is 34 percent. This picture is the most important proof that women's labor is systematically ignored, exploited, and that social justice is eroding.

The most important problem in Turkey, violence against women, does not stop. We closed the year 2024 with 445 femicides. In these short 2 months of 2025, the figure has already reached 64. The source of the violence that women are subjected to is the system itself. Whatever happens in this country, whatever happens, it is not good for these women. It is not good for violence against women. It is not good for femicides. We have discussed these issues at length. We will continue to talk about them throughout the week. Since we are under the roof of the Parliament, let us remind all women in Turkey of our promise once again in the presence of the women in this hall. Just as it was 100 years ago, 100 years later.

"HOPE LIES IN THE CHP GOVERNMENT"

Just as it was 100 years ago, 100 years later, hope lies in the government of the Republican People's Party. When that government is formed, when you come to this parliament once again, perhaps we will not be in this hall. Because we will be the ruling party, we will be in a larger hall. Our large group is here. You will be up there, and I will look into your eyes and remind you of today and say, 'Welcome.' I have come here with the happiness of keeping the promise made to you. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey has put the Istanbul Convention back into effect. On that day, we will remember today. I am making a note of this in history.

I am recording this as a note in history. Until this group puts the Istanbul Convention back into effect, your struggle is our struggle. Now, unfortunately, we have seen what kind of hope we are traveling towards from these difficult conditions we are in, how determined you are, and how determined we are. There is no room for fear in our book. There is no room for surrendering to hopelessness or despair in our book. But there are those who want to discourage this country, drag it into hopelessness, and organize fear and pressure instead of hope. I have to briefly touch upon what they do, remind them, and say what we see and what we are doing.

We are not the ones who created this agenda, this negative agenda. But we are not in a position to leave those who are on this agenda alone either. On Sunday, with the suggestion and leadership of our Women's Branch Chairwoman who also organized today, we were in Bolu Kartalkaya. We were in front of that hotel of shame that burned down. We left carnations. Mawlids were recited in mosques. We said our prayers there, and we were with a grandfather who was left all alone after 8 people from a family who lost their lives in Bolu—two mothers, two fathers, four grandchildren—were put in the grave. Or with a grandmother who buried her grandchild and her mother, her own child, her daughter, and her daughter's daughter.

This great pain, on its 40th day, on the first day, 40 candles were burning in our hearts. They went out, they went out, they went out. That one candle remained. Against those whose hearts have turned to stone, this hall and those who demand justice for Kartalkaya together with this hall are the ones who will never let that one candle, which burns the bottom of their hearts, go out. We do not extinguish that one candle for Soma either. We do not extinguish that one candle for those who lost their lives in the fireworks factory that exploded. We do not extinguish it for Afyon either. We do not extinguish it for the Çorlu train accident. We do not extinguish it for Ermenek, and we do not extinguish it for Sivas Madımak.

"THIS FIRE WILL NOT SUBSIDE UNTIL THOSE SOULS ARE ACCOUNTED FOR"

Wherever there are those whose hearts continue to burn with that candle, wherever there are moral people, good people, we promise them. We do not forget. We do not let it be forgotten, we will not forgive, and we will hold them accountable one by one. On one side, let the Minister of Justice, who called the report 'Korsa' and then was embarrassed, embarrassed by his own writings, sit in his seat. On the other side, let the Minister of Interior, who said 'all those responsible will be in front of the judge within 10 days' and has been silent since that day, sit. On the other side, let the Minister of Tourism, who is responsible for 78 souls even though all reports point to his responsibility, sit.

I say this to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who appoints them, who appoints each one of them: There is no politics in this matter. There is no protecting ministers. There is no cronyism. This is a matter of life. This fire in our consciences will not subside until those souls are accounted for. You will either feel this or you will respect those who do. On the other side, we said our hearts are burning for Madımak. It has been burning for 32 years. But unfortunately, the treatment given to those who burned 35 of our souls to death continues to bleed consciences.

ÖZEL'S REACTION TO THE MADIMAK DECISION

One of the defendants inside made an application to the Constitutional Court 4 years ago, and it yielded a result for him. Suddenly, it yielded a result for all Madımak murderers. His application was this: He applied in 2023. It was put into practice in February 2025. Those who do not implement the decisions made by the Constitutional Court for Can Atalay, Selahattin Demirtaş, and Osman Kavala, upon the decision of the Constitutional Court that 'Sivas murderers can benefit from good conduct, they are not members of a terrorist organization,' actually granted statute of limitations to some defendants even though it is a crime against humanity.

Those who use the pardon authority for Hayrettin Gül and Ahmet Turan Kılıç, while not allowing the rights they do not grant to people in much worse situations who are dying in their wards, this time instrumentalized a Constitutional Court decision and released 23 of the 29 criminals within this month of February. 6 more criminals are expected to be released in the coming days. And when the microphone was held to Erdoğan regarding the statute of limitations decision, he said this: 'May it be auspicious for our nation.' Mr. Erdoğan has chosen his side as always. Let us also make our side clear.

ERDOĞAN IS ON THE SIDE OF THE PERPETRATORS

Let us say it again. It seems that Mr. Erdoğan is on the side of those who burned in Kartalkaya as well as in Madımak. And we are on the side of those who were burned. We are on the side of those who were burned. These great heartaches, these great heartaches, cannot be a precedent.

THIS TIME HE DID THE GÜLLAÇ CALCULATION

I ask those who received a raise in their salaries according to the figures announced by TUIK. They say a 100-lira item has gone up to 140 liras. Education, which should be of high quality, has turned into the biggest area of rent-seeking.

'Tayyip Bey is angry with me, he says stop the gold calculation,' I said. It is the holy month of Ramadan, I will not upset Tayyip Bey, I said, I am stopping the gold calculation. I will do a güllaç calculation. Güllaç, which was 25 liras in 2018, has become 355 liras in 2025. The cost of making it at home has increased by 1320 percent in 7 years.

Tayyip Erdoğan, forgetting that we went to the Cyprus operation, had asked Ecevit to account for the gas canister queues. Now there is no embargo, no war, but oh Erdoğan, if you take a curse, the curse will catch you, but what is the fault of this citizen? You create meat queues, what is the fault of the citizen? Those who enter this queue will enter the queue at the ballot boxes and end these queues.

While the nation is wasting its life in queues, Erdoğan tried to tell a tale of wealth. The army of unemployed in the country is competing with the population of Northern European countries.

On one hand, the Halk TV case is being heard. We hope that the very valuable Suat Toktaş will regain his freedom in Silivri today. We are with Serhan Asker, Kürşad Oğuz, Barış Pehlivan, and Seda Selek. Their crime is that every time, out of 8,000 people, the same expert witness emerges for the injustice our Mayor Ekrem suffered, and they are putting our friends on trial who are trying to report the news to ask this expert witness about this coincidence. We are with them in Istanbul with a strong delegation.

"THEY ARE TRYING TO APPOINT TRUSTEES"

They could not take over the Istanbul Bar Association, the world's largest bar association, through elections. They passed impossible laws to open a second bar association. They failed. Now they are trying to appoint a trustee by sticking a terrorist label on it. The bar association has a case. We are there. On one hand, they have now brought a cybersecurity law to the parliament to put pressure on both journalists and those who try to deliver all kinds of accurate information to the public without censorship. Let us express this in front of our group. The Republican People's Party has always said that there should be a cybersecurity law in this age.

They said there should be a cybersecurity institution. However, we wanted this institution to be an institution that can be audited within the framework of law, is transparent, and gives confidence to everyone. But in the draft brought by the AK Party, the authority to appoint the head of the Cybersecurity Institution is given to the President, and this head is given the authority to conduct searches in residences, workplaces, and closed areas, and to make copies and seize items without a prosecutor's decision, by saying the situation is urgent, by someone appointed by Erdoğan. Our group objects to this very fundamentally.

They are resisting, they are struggling. We are criticizing to the end the authority to declare everyone a criminal in Turkey, to put pressure on journalists, to hide the truth, and to unfairly raid houses and conduct searches in the middle of the morning, being given to an appointee, not to a judge or a prosecutor, but to someone appointed by the President. Our friends will do their best to fight for this. If the law passes, we will take it to the Constitutional Court and bring it under control.

"THERE WILL BE NO ROOM LEFT IN SILIVRI"

Whoever disturbs this government, they stand against them with the stick of the judiciary. As of today, they have unfortunately sent our Beykoz Mayor Alaattin Köseler to join our elected 3 mayors of Istanbul, our Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer and our Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat. Mayor Alaattin's crime is taking a district like Beykoz, a district where he previously served as mayor, out of the hands of the AK Party this time and making it a Republican People's Party municipality. Yesterday, many local administrators, seeing the questions Mayor Alaattin was faced with and the decision made, said this: 'If there were a state of law in this country, if these questions were asked and answers were received, not a single AK Party or Nationalist Movement Party mayor could be on the street. There would be no room left in Silivri for all of them to lie down.'

They would all be in Silivri at once. For a 65-year-old mayor, Mayor Alaattin, to be put in jail for matters that are in the work and operation of every municipality, for which he is not responsible, where he has no signature, no instruction, and where 99 percent of them are nothing out of the normal operation, if someone is to be held accountable, it should be the one who did it. The ill-intentioned people who intend to create a perception carried out such a process. He was coming here at 4 in the morning. He was coming to our primary election introduction meeting. They went at 4 in the morning.

They raided his house, searched his house, and supposedly collected evidence from there. We say how lawless they are. We know. Everyone knows, but a very simple example to explain how lawless they are. I was there when the Turkish Penal Code was being changed. The 4th judicial package. I knew it very clearly. I asked my lawyer friends, they said of course. I had debated this place. They were boasting that there are no more dawn operations in the 4th judicial package. There are no more midnight raids. They said searches in Turkey will be done in broad daylight. They said, 'Searches cannot be done at night in a residence, workplace, or other closed places.' They wrote this. And under it, what is night time? In paragraph e of the article. They said, 'The term night time refers to the time starting 1 hour after sunset and continuing until one hour before sunrise.'

According to this calculation, sunrise in Istanbul that day was 7:34, the time of the search was 4:04. We are becoming like Europe. We are ending night searches. These are the ones who boast that we are passing a law. These are the ones who raised their hands for this law. These are the ones who appointed that prosecutor there, and these are the ones who did this search again.

I ask the mentality that keeps an elected 65-year-old mayor in detention for 4 days starting with a search done like this, takes his statement in the last hours of the 4th day, and then takes him to the courthouse and arrests him: If you think you can stay in power by doing this, you are dreaming, my brother, you are dreaming.

On the other hand, on the other hand, the Minister of Justice gives the same answer to every microphone extended to him. 'Turkey is a state of law. Everyone is equal before the law. Everyone is obliged to comply with what the laws say and the court's decision.' Is that so, Minister of Justice? We took Istanbul from the AK Party. 37 files. 37 major corruption files, complete in every detail. The person called Süleyman Soylu was the Minister of Interior that day. He came. He seized 33 of the 37 files. 'These corruption files will be investigated by the Ministry of Interior from now on.' Where are those files? Where are those files? Has any action been taken on one of them, on one of them? He took the complete corruption files. He sat on them. He dried up the law of justice. Now he is nowhere to be seen.

"THERE ARE EXACTLY 97 FILES REGARDING THE MELİH GÖKÇEK ERA, HAS ANYONE OPENED THEIR COVERS?"

This figure is in Ankara. Of course, let us be aware of who Ankara was taken from and which era is being questioned. There are exactly 97 files regarding the Melih Gökçek era. There are 97 major corruption files. Has anyone opened their covers? Has anyone held anyone accountable? Has anyone said a word about these corruption files? From now on, we will talk about this here, my friend. We will talk about it here.

"THEY DO NOT EVEN APOLOGIZE TO THE CHP"

We are following the process that started with Mr. Bahçeli shaking the hand of the DEM group carefully, meticulously, and by carrying our responsibility. While the CHP was being declared a terrorist when it met with the DEM Party, while it was criticized when it objected to the appointment of a trustee, while a CHP mayor was accepted as a member of a terrorist organization and thrown inside just because he made a phone call for condolences, while the way for assigning a delegation is being opened, they do not even apologize to the CHP. We advocate that this problem be solved under the roof of the Parliament. We express that it should be solved by taking steps towards democratization and by making laws. We underline that it must be carried out with complete sincerity, transparency, and social consensus.

We know how it was dragged into disaster by Erdoğan as it was in 2015. We express that there is the same wrong perspective today. We remind that while the table was being set in Dolmabahçe and live broadcast preparations were being made, it was denied by Erdoğan. I remind those who say 'Erdoğan is managing this process correctly' that Erdoğan is at the same table with all the actors at the Dolmabahçe table.

"I AM MAKING AN OPEN CALL"

When we said that the negotiations were being conducted by the state, they made a denial from DEM. I am making an open call; it will not be solved by a magic wand touching Öcalan, or by saying everything will be fine, this has no reality. If such a problem is to be solved, it will be solved under the roof of the Parliament with democratization. While journalists, Gezi prisoners, Kurds, Turks, local administrators are inside, while trustee practices continue, a solution is not possible in this country. If there is a relationship based on interest, both Kurds and Turks will lose at the end of this business. If a correct process had not been managed in 2015, there would not have been the blood and tears flowing from that day to this. A despotic government will beat everyone up and throw them in jail, and then talk about democratization. Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş must take responsibility.

We have not been involved in a give-and-take bargain, and we will not be in the end, but the CHP will be where it should be, it will extend the hand that needs to be extended. We will make a speech at the EU Parliament. We are going to Brussels."

News Source: 12punto