Former AKP MP wants reconciliation with Hizbollah after PKK

Duvar English

Former the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Mehmet Metiner demanded reconciliation with Hizbollah.

Speaking in a live broadcast of Ekol TV, Metiner commented on the government’s seeming reconciliation efforts with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and said, “Why should we deny Hizbollah the chance we gave to the PKK?”

Most recently, government-ally, far-right MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli invited jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to the Parliament to announce the dissolution of the PKK.

“I know the organization called Hizbollah best. The leader who was killed was my friend. I know them all, right down to the entire leadership. I do not defend their actions and logic in any way. In my opinion, violence, terror, and weapons are not the solution to anything. So what is Hizbollah? At a time when the PKK was trying to dominate the region, Hizbollah said, 'I am here, I am not leaving, no matter what the cost',” he said. 

“They were never at war with the state. Their methods are wrong. HÜDA PAR is not Hizbollah's party. Even if it were, it is not an organization at war with the state,” he concluded. 

Hizbullah killed scores of people in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and targeted mostly Kurds in Turkey's southeast region during fighting between Turkish security forces and the PKK.

In the early 2000s, Hizbullah started to reorganize itself quietly under several foundations, associations, and other entities in Turkey. Several members of the group established the HÜDA-PAR as a political party in December 2012 with the support of the current government, which green-lighted the party's entry into politics.

For the 2023 general election, HÜDA-PAR candidates ran under AKP tickets and four deputies entered into Parliament.