According to Abdulhamit Gül, the secretary-general of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has become a national security problem because party members attended a rally with “supporters of terrorism.”
Gül, who was addressing fellow party members in Gaziantep, criticized the attendance of CHP members at a rally in Kartal last week protesting the arrest of 10 Kurdish deputies from Parliament. The AKP secretary-general accused Kılıçdaroğlu of doing politics just like the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is the third largest party in the legislature.
According to Gül, the CHP, which was established by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has turned into a political party that supports those who say they receive the backing of “terrorists,” in reference to arrested HDP Co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ’s remarks about Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Along with Yüksekdağ, the other co-chair of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, was also arrested on charges of terrorist links on Nov. 4.