Demirtaş spoke about the President Erdoğan inviting leaders of CHP, MHP and AKP and not sending them an invitation. Demirtaş said, “If they again want to act like HDP doesn’t exist and say they will solve the issues around a ‘Turkish national front’, that’s their prerogative, but this approach is very wrong and lacking.”

President Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with the leaders of AKP, MHP and CHP today to congratulate them on their approach to the coup attempt. But HDP, who had proposed a leaders summit before and had also signed the joint petition against the coup in the parliament, wasn’t invited to the meeting. HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş talked about this situation in his talk with a group of journalists.

THE “TURKISH NATIONAL FRONT” APPROACH

Demirtaş said the continued exclusion of and discrimination against HDP, even after the coup attempt, is very immature and senseless.

Demirtaş continued: “This shows that they can’t really comprehend the outcome of the attempted coup entirely yet. The key to Turkey’s democracy lies with the HDP, with the societal groups HDP represents. What triggered the coup is also the approach to hand over the Kurdish issue to the army. Now if they, once again, say that they will act like HDP doesn’t exist and attempt to solve the issues around a “Turkish national front”, it’s their prerogative, but this approach is very wrong and lacking.”

Demirtaş also commented that it was odd that the opposition parties didn’t have a problem with this situation, and continued: “The exclusion of HDP, which represents the sections of society who experience the actual problems, under the name of ‘Feast of Democracy’ shows that the issues in Turkey won’t get on track to be solved easily. This is a development that shows they still don’t understand what the coup attempt tried to do. The coup attempt wanted to create a divide, and they play into their hands. This is what they are doing. They have great personal anger towards the HDP as well. Because in the end, HDP is the party that displays the fiercest opposition to AKP. The elections of June 7 and November 1 were not so much about other parties, but mostly as a rivalry between HDP and AKP.”

THE THREE PARTIES SAYING “WE AGREED” WON’T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS IN TURKEY

Demirtaş pointed out that the society can come together, but the politicians can’t, and said: “No solution will come out of this. On which subject do they think different that they won’t be able to agree in this meeting? We are the ones who have different opinions on most of the issues. These three parties should reconcile with us somehow, should come to an agreement with us. Frankly, the issues in Turkey are never solved when these three parties, these three ideologies come together and say ‘OK, we have agreed’.”