{"id":96797,"date":"2023-04-21T17:22:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T17:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/?p=96797"},"modified":"2023-05-13T08:51:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-13T08:51:18","slug":"three-weeks-before-turkish-elections-kilicdaroglu-speaks-up-for-minorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/96797\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Three weeks before Turkish elections, Kilicdaroglu speaks up for minorities<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) \u2013<\/strong> With just over three weeks left until Turkey\u2019s presidential and parliamentary elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main contender for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s job, is appealing to the country\u2019s ethnic and religious minorities. It is a striking departure from Turkey\u2019s national and nationalist politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a video posted to Twitter last week, Kilicdaroglu opened up about his own Alevi roots, addressing young, first-time voters in particular. \u201cOur identities are what makes us who we are \u2026 We cannot choose them,\u201d the CHP party head said. \u201cBut there are very important things in life we can choose. We can choose to be a good person, to be honest, to be ethical, to be righteous, to be virtuous and fair. We can choose to lead a better life in a free and prosperous country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alevis are the largest religious minority in Turkey, encompassing both ethnic Turks as well as Kurds. They have been historically persecuted, particularly by the nationalist fringes, including the junior partner to Erdogan\u2019s AK party in parliament, the MHP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kilicdaroglu\u2019s frank message has generally been received favorably. Selahattin Demirtas, an imprisoned leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, tweeted, \u201cI wholeheartedly support this message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kilicdaroglu also made overtures to the country\u2019s Kurds last week, addressing the so-called \u2018Kurdish issue\u2019 head on. \u201cMillions of Kurds are currently being treated as terrorists,\u201d he said in a different Twitter video. He called out Erdogan for stigmatizing the country\u2019s Kurds has he falls in the polls, calling his behavior \u201cshameful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The six-party coalition in opposition to Erdogan, which is headed by Kilicdaroglu, are largely dependent on Kurdish voters to get them over the finish line in the presidential elections. The <a href=\"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/95283\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HDP has not fielded<\/a> any of their own candidates in a move meant to strengthen the coalition\u2019s chances at the ballet box. Even so, polls show a narrow neck-and-neck race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kilicdaroglu\u2019s courting of the Kurds is a markedly different approach to the government\u2019s current policy. Yet the country\u2019s minorities will not let their guard down. Erdogan clutched the top job in 2003 by making promises to conservative Kurds. Until 2014, Erdogan relaxed laws against the Kurdish language and culture, and was set to make peace with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK). Before that, Turkey\u2019s Kurds had lived through decades of massacres and oppression at the hands Kilicdaroglu\u2019s own CHP party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Reporting by Sasha Hoffman<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) \u2013 With just over three weeks left until Turkey\u2019s presidential and parliamentary elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main contender for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s job, is appealing to the country\u2019s ethnic and religious minorities. It is a striking departure from Turkey\u2019s national and nationalist politics. In a video posted to Twitter last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-middle-east"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Three weeks before Turkish elections, Kilicdaroglu speaks up for minorities - North press agency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) \u2013 With just over three weeks left until Turkey\u2019s presidential and parliamentary elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/96797\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three weeks before Turkish elections, Kilicdaroglu speaks up for minorities - 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