Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Sunday said some of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and İYİ (Good) Party’s city council candidates who come from a Kurdish background and allegedly have ties to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) are terrorists “a hundred percent for sure.”
“We aren’t talking to CHP voters. But there are terrorists inside the party who they vote for,” Çavuşoğlu said during a rally in Antalya province, the Artı Gerçek news website reported.
A Turkish Interior Ministry report claims that 325 candidates for municipal councils from the CHP, the İYİ (Good) Party and the Felicity Party (SP) are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, the pro-government A Haber TV station reported on Saturday evening.
“They want to put HDP members in municipalities in order to finance PKK terrorists,” Çavuşoğlu said.
“Our target is not just winning elections. There’s a question of survival of the country,” he added. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party usually equate the PKK with the HDP, although the latter is a legitimate party represented in the Turkish parliament.