Erdoğan calls on CHP to not view Alevis as its ‘backyard’

Speaking at the parliamentary group meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Erdoğan told CHP leader Deniz Baykal: “Was it not you who closed the CHP’s door in the faces of the Alevis years ago? Our Alevi fellows are not your backyard, and they will never be.”

The CHP has drawn the ire of Alevis recently after its deputy chairman, Onur Öymen, defended the violent suppression of a rebellion in 1937 in the Alevi-dominated province of Tunceli. Öymen did not apologize for his remarks, and the party administration has stood by him, resulting in growing anger from Alevi communities domestically as well as Alevi groups who have immigrated to European countries.

During a speech in Parliament on Nov. 10 criticizing the government’s Kurdish initiative, which seeks to expand the rights of Kurds in Turkey to alleviate and ultimately end the separatist terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Öymen said: “Didn’t mothers also cry at the time of the Sheikh Said Rebellion? Didn’t mothers also cry at the time of the Dersim Rebellion?” in response to the government’s use of the phrase “Let no more mothers cry” as part of its efforts to end the PKK’s campaign of terrorism.

Recalling a statement made years ago by Baykal upon the nomination of Ahmet Güryüz Ketenci, a friend of Erdoğan, to the presidency of the CHP’s İstanbul branch that “this is our nominee for the head of CHP’s İstanbul provincial branch. He is both a Turk and Sunni, he is not an Alevi,” Erdoğan said nobody forgot those CHP statements, which alienated non-Turks and non-Sunnis from the party. “You do not have the right or authority to put the political will of the Alevis in pledge.

As long as you continue to become the party of a region and a certain segment of society and categorize people according to religion, ethnic roots and sect, you will never be able to address any social segment in Turkey. As long as you do not reconcile your history and the nation, this public will keep you out of politics, and it is doing so,” said Erdoğan.

Erdoğan also challenged the CHP to lend support to the AK Party’s democratization initiative if it really cares for the problems of the Alevis.