Alp Altınörs: There is no bread without peace

“The breaking point of all this was 7 June, the elections. Since then Turkey has been put into a dark period of 5 years," said HDP executive Alp Altınörs.

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Central Executive Board member, Alp Altınörs, spoke to ANF about the depreciation of the Turkish lira against the euro and the dollar and stated that structural problems in Turkey have been made evident.

Alp Altınörs drew attention to the ruling block war policy implemented by the AKP. Stating that they witnessed the bankruptcy of capitalist modernity during the epidemic process, Altınörs noted that all economic problems are actually the problems of the capitalist system.

Pointing out that the rise in the dollar and euro is not a cause, but a result, Altınörs said: "The current state of the economy is an indication of the outbreak of structural problems. The people can see more clearly with dollar exchange rates that something is not going well in the economy. "This situation has been determined by the war bloc as a mean of development of the economy by increasing military investments to the highest extent under the name of the defense industry. In the region, very important resources were wasted in military adventures.”

Altınörs added: "The pandemic period caused rampant unemployment. According to Turkstat April 2020 the unemployment rate fell. When we look at employment we see a loss of 52%. Much more realistic are the data given by DISK-AR. Because 5 million people remained unemployed by a decree of the Ministry of Interior. We are faced with an unprecedented unemployment explosion in Turkey's history."

Reminding that we are witnessing a devaluation of the dollar index in the world, Altınörs said: "Even in such a situation, the TL is losing value against the dollar. Of course, the wrong policies of the AKP government are one reason. But this is not the only problem. The problem is capitalist modernity: This pandemic is the pandemic of capitalism. Capitalism has been seen to be a disease throughout the world. New social movements that radically question capitalist modernity are inevitable.”

Altınörs continued: "The Kurdish problem is very decisive in terms of the crisis we are currently experiencing. If we look at the economy in 2013-2014 and then to that post-2015 peace dialogue, when Erdogan ended the talks, we can see very clearly the difference. Then started a chain of war policies launched under the name of 'fighting terror'.

The government promotes the idea that they can solve the problem with unilateral use of military force. They said ‘We will solve the Kurdish problem through military methods’. From there, this fire spread to the Middle East, and as a typical Middle Eastern country, we became a country with both internal conflicts and regional conflicts. In an environment of ceasefire and dialogue we saw a completely different opportunity.”

Altınörs added: “The breaking point of all this was 7 June, the elections. Since then Turkey has been put into a dark period of 5 years. The war industry and the army have become everything. The people paying taxes are just used to finance soldiers and the army. In a time when militarism is so pushed forward, you cannot expect any further development in the economy. There is no bread without peace, we can clearly state this."