Major change in Turkey's main opposition party

CHP’s most recent actions regarding national security and sovereignty fuel mounting criticism.

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Major change in Turkey's main opposition party
Main opposition CHP clarifies policy undermines partner

Main opposition CHP clarifies policy, undermines partner

With Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's recent moves, the IP's agenda to become Turkey’s top center-right party is unlikely to be achieved

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In today's global and regional developments, the Western world's otherizing and alienating of Turkey is nothing but an ideological blindness

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Good Party (IP) recently signaled that they could walk back on their rapprochement with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The year 2023 has symbolic significance for the people of Turkey. The most crucial questions are where have we reached after 100 years and what the next century holds for us.

As Turkey prepares to launch a new military operation against YPG militants in northern Syria, the CHP leadership will find it difficult to explain why it opposed the authorization bill.

'Political murders': What is this all about in Turkey?

By all indications, 2022 will be a year full of intense arguments and discussions.

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Political murders' What is this all about in Turkey
Turkish opposition's investment in polarization

Turkish opposition's investment in polarization

Opposition parties know no bounds in trying to 'get rid of Erdoğan' even if it means increasing tension and polarization

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CHP and the IP may face two problems at once. Failure to talk about autonomy or native-language education would get them stuck between Erdoğan’s Diyarbakır address and the HDP’s demands. Discussing the problems with the reconciliation process would put the CHP and the IP, not the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), in a difficult position.

Turkey just entered a period of renewed debate on the Kurdish question, when the way we talk about that issue, too, will be the subject of discussion.

Turkey’s opposition parties are locked in a competition with each other to generate the harshest political rhetoric possible as they attempt to block Kanal Istanbul, a megaproject set to create an artificial waterway between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea.

For the record, it is not yet clear which political parties will contest the next election as part of the Nation Alliance. Potential changes to Turkey’s electoral system, too, may tilt the balance of power.

The backlash over U.S. President Joe Biden’s statement on the so-called Armenian 'genocide' continues. Deeming the Turkish government’s reaction insufficient, opposition leaders argued that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lacked 'the courage to hang up on Biden.' Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Good Party (IP) leader Meral Akşener eagerly attacked the government much more fiercely than they reacted to the White House statement. Turkey’s contemporary foreign policy, they said, was actually responsible for what happened.

One thing is clear: The relationship between Ankara and Washington gradually evolve from the constraints of a traditional alliance. A new modus operandi emerges, which brings together adversity, competition and cooperation.

The opposition elites, by contrast, cannot rid themselves of "othering" – secularist fanaticism. They are certainly miles away from having the kind of self-confidence needed to govern a country like Turkey.

At the end of the day, the HDP wasted every single opportunity and failed the test of democracy.

The reaction of politicians to the execution of 13 Turkish citizens by the PKK terrorist group demonstrates the challenges Turkey faces in its counterterrorism efforts. It is deeply saddening that opposition parties would rather look for a scapegoat than join the nation in condemning the terrorists who shot abductees in the head.

Turkey mourns the death of its 13 unarmed citizens, who were executed by the PKK terrorist organization in a cave on Mt. Gara, northern Iraq. The most recent security operation, during which three Turkish troops lost their lives, not only demonstrated anew the PKK’s bloodthirsty nature but also revealed the unbearable double standards that apply to the condemnation of terror attacks at home and abroad.

Leaders of Turkey’s major political parties are meeting more frequently, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's "alliance" talks with the Felicity Party (SP) reinvigorated the opposition. There is an effort underway to keep relations warm between the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Good Party (IP), the SP, the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and the Future Party (GP) over proposals of an “augmented parliamentary system.”