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Various socialist and leftist parties held their first meeting yesterday (18 December) in Ankara in response to a call from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and in a joint statement after the meeting put out a message of “hope and determination”.
Representatives of the Labour Party (EMEP), Halkevleri (an association of community centres), the Federation of Socialist Assemblies (SMF), the Labourer’s Movement Party (EHP), the Social Freedom Party (TÖP), the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), the Worker’s Party of Turkey (TİP) and the HDP took part in the meeting, held in the Turkish capital, MA reports.
After the meeting, the participants issued a joint statement which emphasised the need to take responsibility for the problems of the peoples of Turkey.
The statement pointed to Turkey’s social, political and economic problems and the government’s policies of exploitation, discrimination and oppression which are the root cause of rights violations, the destruction of the environment and poverty.
“We can establish a strong union that will grow hope, inspire society with confidence, call a halt to the oppressive policies of the current regime, and pave the way for democratic change and transformation. For this to succeed, we believe that Turkey’s democratic, left, socialist and revolutionary forces need to join forces in the struggle “.
The statement continued as follows:
“We, the political parties and groups whose signatures appear below, have come together on 18 January 2022 in response to a call made by the HDP. We are sharing the decisions we have made in this meeting with the public:
– We will continue our common struggle and work to increase and strengthen the basis of that common struggle,
-We will continue regular discussions to identify the issues in the common struggle and find methods for tackling them and timetables for implementing them,
-We are not restricting ourselves to the current participants, but have decided to try and broaden our joint struggle to include all Turkey’s democratic, left-wing, socialist and revolutionary forces.
– We will continue to talk about ways of establishing the broadest possible alliance of democracy, equal citizenship and struggle, including all of Turkey’s oppressed, marginalised groups, victims, workers, women, young people and environmental activists. As democratic, left-wing, socialist and revolutionary forces, we are determined to fulfill our social responsibility.
With solidarity, struggle and hope…
EMEP, Halkevleri, SMF, EHP, TÖP, TKP, TİP, HDP ”
Left Party did not attend
The Left Party was one political party invited to the meeting yesterday that did not attend. The day before the meeting the Left Party announced its reasons for this as follows:
“Our party does not think it is right to join discussions of election alliance at this stage. We hereby inform the public that we are not part of the democracy alliance as for now it has no clear content.”
Meanwhile, Kemal Okuyan, General Secretary of the TKP, answered the questions of Sol TV Editor-in-Chief Gökhan Kazbek regarding the meeting and said that the content of the meeting was not the alliance per se.
“The HDP’s alliance policy is not limited to the left. We already have significant differences with the HDP on these fundamental issues. But we received a very kind invitation to this meeting and we attended said, ‘We will share our thoughts with you and we will listen to you’.”
Democracy Alliance meetings
On 27 September 2021, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) announced their “Democracy Alliance”, which they are now working on as part of their campaign, with the motto “Call for Democracy, Justice and Peace”. Various meetings will be held with other leftist and socialist political parties and groups in response to a call from the HDP.
Discussions to establish a Democracy Alliance that will raise hopes for a solution to Turkey’s multiple crises will be held at the meetings, which aim to include different segments of society.
The HDP aims to establish a broad partnership for struggle, of all democratic, leftist, socialist and revolutionary forces in Turkey. In this context discussions will be held on ways of establishing a common struggle including all of Turkey’s oppressed, marginalised groups, workers, women, young people and environmental activists.
