HDP seeks to visit four opposition parties in bid to launch dialogues

Nergis Demirkaya / DUVAR

The Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has asked for appointments from four opposition parties as part of its efforts to launch dialogues. 

HDP co-chairs Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar asked to have meetings with the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Felicity Party, Future Party and Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA). The first meeting is expected to be held with Felicity Party leader Temel Karamollaoğlu next week. 

The co-chairs will offer their solutions on the issues of democratization, freedoms and justice. 

Opposition parties have been paying visits to each other in the past couple of weeks, mainly as part of the efforts to form an alliance against the ruling bloc consisting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) - the People's Alliance.

Members of the Nation Alliance, the CHP, right-wing Good (İYİ) Party, Felicity Party and Democrat Party, have been holding meetings with each other since 2018. The talks have increased since the foundation of DEVA and Future parties. 

Future Party leader Ahmet Davutoğlu, who is the former prime minister, presented his party's model for an enhanced parliamentary system for democracy in November 2020 and asked for appointments from all parties to discuss it. While the MHP rejected the request, the AKP left it unanswered. 

Davutoğlu discussed his parliamentary system proposal with CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and İYİ Party leader Meral Akşener and he is expected to visit the HDP to do so. 

The HDP, which wasn't a part of the Nation Alliance in the 2019 local elections but provided significant support from outside to make the AKP lose, didn't ask for an appointment from the AKP, MHP and the İYİ Party because of their negative discourse towards the party.