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Presidential candidate of the main opposition party Republican People's Party (CHP) Muharrem İnce and President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met at the headquarters of the AKP in Turkey's capital city of Ankara yesterday (May 9).
On the same day, İnce also met with Selahattin Demirtaş, who is the presidential candidate of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and is currently imprisoned in Edirne Type F Prison. As part of his visits to other presidential candidates, İnce had previously met with the Felicity Party (SP) Chair and party's candidate Temel Karamollaoğlu and İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener, who has collected 100 thousand signatures and became eligible to enter the election as a presidential candidate.
"They are both from Rize"
The meeting of Erdoğan and İnce started at 9 p.m. and lasted for 40 minutes. CHP Group Deputy Chairperson Engin Altay and AKP Group Deputy Chairperson Mustafa Elitaş also attended the meeting, which was closed to the press.
Ince made a statement to the press after the meeting and said, "We wished success to Dear Chairperson and the AKP, to his party, we conversed with each other and shared our troubles."
Eliteş made the following statement on behalf of the AKP:
"Presidential candidate of the CHP İnce and [Engin] Altay came to our Esteemed President together. It was a nice conversation, they wished success to one another. The style of the conversation was like that in general terms. It was a nice conversation, they are both from [the province of] Rize."
Newspapers have also reported that during the İnce-Erdoğan meeting, the propaganda process as well as the period of election campaign were addressed.
After the meeting, İnce posted a tweet on his official Twitter account, where he stated that his aim was "to achieve not polarization or separation, but embracing and to be the President of everyone." İnce also added that he would meet with Doğu Perinçek, who managed to collect 100 thousand signatures and qualified to run as a presidential candidate on June 24, 2018. (AS/SD)
