HDP Co-Chair: We Invite Turkey to Negotiation Process

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Sezai Temelli has attended his party's Aegean Regional Conference in the western province of İzmir, making remarks on the country's political aftermath of the İstanbul local election rerun where the opposition candidate, also supported by the HDP, won by a landslide.

Accusing the government of trying to "steal their right to do politics," and "depoliticize Turkey," Temelli said, "What we did on June 23 was to say 'Stop' to this. What we did was to invite people to politics."

"We changed the course of Turkey's politics. We strongly showed that Turkey is not bound with this unitarian understanding," he added.

Temelli called for a new negotiation process with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, "as a requirement of radical democracy," which the HDP advocates.

"This call is for the democratic alliance. Let's open Turkey's closed roads, the road of democracy together. Let's come together in the alliance of democracy. Let's speak [with each other]. Let's speak with Öcalan," Temelli remarked, saying that Öcalan "produced a solution" for Turkey's Kurdish problem.

"We invite everyone to talk, to negotiate and to become partners in the democratic alliance," he added.

Temelli also called for a new constitution based on equal citizenship. (EMK/VK)