CİHAN photo
Two ministers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), EU Minister Ali Haydar Konca and Development Minister Müslüm Doğan, resigned Sept. 22 from their posts in an interim cabinet in a sign of growing tension over the ongoing conflict between Turkey’s security forces and militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The HDP announced the resignations of Konca and Doğan, both from the HDP and members of an interim cabinet steering the country to the snap parliamentary election, in a brief statement. The HDP statement was released less than an hour after a cabinet meeting chaired by AKP leader and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu earlier that day during which the two ministers presented their resignations.
“The Palace [President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] and the AKP, which he instructs, facilitated a war and coup mentality against the June 7 election results starting June 8,” Konca said in a joint press conference with Doğan after the announcement of their resignations.
Konca blamed both Erdoğan and the AKP for embracing “a war concept” and abandoning the resolution process aimed at ending a three-decade conflict between the security forces and the PKK, while citing curfews in several southeastern provinces as signs of “a coup-like governance.”
“We had entertained hopes that a cabinet without the AKP is possible. We are saying clearly and sharply that it is the AKP government itself which applied war in practice and made a coup in politics. Despite all its attempts at a massacre, it is the palace and the AKP itself that is experiencing the greatest fear. But we say to all of our peoples that despite all the facts we listed, there is no need for pessimism, and we state once more that we have no other option than getting rid of the AKP,” Konca said.