CHP (Republican People’s Party) Chairman Özgür Özel and his accompanying delegation visited DEM Party and met with co-chairs Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan in Ankara today. Özlem Gündüz, deputy co-chair of DEM Party Commission for Relations with NGOs and Political Parties, and Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki, co-chair of the Democratic Local Governments Committee, also attended the meeting.

Speaking after the meeting, Bakırhan said: "Today, we welcomed Republican People's Party Chairman Özgür Özel and his delegation at our Headquarters. We had a very productive meeting. We discussed and talked about the economic crisis, democracy, the Kurdish question, trustees, the environmental crisis, in other words, the issues Turkey is going through. As you know, there is something that our party has always expressed. The opposition, political parties solve problems through dialogue and negotiation. In a process when we are experiencing such intense problems, opposition parties need further negotiation and dialogue. I hope that the political parties in Turkey will continue and enhance the process of dialogue and negotiation in the coming days."

Özel stated the following: "We would like to thank the co-chairs for the hospitality they have shown to our delegation. We visited the Dem Party at its headquarters under its new name. I have emphasized this at every stage of my previous service in the Parliament; dialogue between political parties is one of the most important cornerstones for the democracy of a country, for the productivity of a parliament and for social peace in a country. This is indispensable. We held our congress. After our congress, the co-chairs called me and congratulated me. Later, when I looked at the calendar, I realised that they had also held their congress just before us. Amid the intensity of our congress, there was no opportunity for a congratulatory visit. I paid that visit with our delegation today. We wished them success in their duties, we expressed mutual wishes for success. As Mr. Co-Chair also stated, we did what we should do while we were together; we evaluated Turkey, we evaluated the world, we evaluated the process ahead. I would like to express that we had a very productive, very constructive meeting. Our dialogue and meetings will continue in the following processes. We think that this dialogue and this meeting will make very important contributions to democracy in Turkey. Once again, on behalf of the Republican People's Party, I would like to thank them and all the politicians and labourers who hosted us at the Dem Headquarters."

Tülay Hatimoğulları said: "Today, Mr Özgür Özel paid a visit with an CHP delegation. Both parties held their congresses one after the other right after the general elections. It was a courtesy and congratulatory visit. We once again convey our good wishes to them in your presence. We wish success to the new administration. As both of our chairpersons have stated, today we came together to discuss the political process that Turkey and the world are going through, the economic crisis, and the crisis of democracy in Turkey.

It is something we miss to see political parties, which are supposed to be models for democracy, open the way of dialogue to discuss and talk about Turkey's problems and produce solutions together. Unfortunately, when we look back at the history of Turkey, we do not have very rich experiences in this regard. We hope that together with all political parties in Turkey and the structures that are the conscience of the power of democracy, we can make headway on this issue."