Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to the opposition six-party Nation Alliance, led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP), as a “bankruptcy of political morality”, claiming that it was formed based on offers of positions in exchange for support in a live broadcast for a pro-government channel on Wednesday.
He also criticised Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whom he has repeatedly targeted since 2015 when Demirtaş vowed during a HDP meeting to not allow Erdoğan to become president. Erdoğan accused Demirtaş of being responsible for the deaths during the Kobane events in 2014. The Turkish President also argued that Demirtaş, who he claimed is a Zaza, not a Kurd, is exploiting the deaths of the Kurdish children to further his own Zaza, not Kurdish, political agenda.
Erdoğan’s assertion that Zazas are not Kurds is part of a larger discourse in Turkish politics to divide the Kurdish people. The Turkish government, particularly during the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) rule, has consistently attempted to create a division among Kurdish people by promoting the idea that Zazas are a distinct ethnic group separate from Kurds, to weaken Kurdish solidarity.
During the Kobane events that occurred in Turkey from 6-9 October 2014, protesters took to the streets to show support for the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) defence of the Syrian town Kobane, which had been under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) since September of that year. The HDP had called on the Turkish government to allow military aid to be sent to Kobane through Turkish lands, but their pleas went unanswered. Instead, Erdoğan delivered a provocative speech in which he claimed that ISIS would soon take over Kobane. As a response, mass protests intensified throughout Turkey, leading to even more fervent demonstrations, which were met with live bullets by Turkish security forces. In some cities, supporters of the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR) also attacked the protesters. As a result, 51 people were killed, and hundreds were injured. Demirtaş criticised the violence and called for an end to it in a press statement in Diyarbakır on 9 October, which effectively helped to calm the situation. Still, he was charged in line with Erdoğan’s accusations and is kept as a political prisoner despite the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) rulings.
