HDP MPs Pervin Buldan and Sebahat Tuncel evaluated the incidents that took place in the Diyadin district of Ağrı at the weekend. A HDP delegation is to visit the province today.   

An Imrali delegation comprising MPs Pervin Buldan and Leyla Zana, Ceylan Bayrıyanık and Hatip Dicle is to visit Ağrı today. HDP MP and HDK Co-spokesperson Sebahat Tuncel said the incidents had been instigated by the AKP as part of a strategy to prevent rising support for the HDP.

The Imralı delegation is to go to the scene of the incidents on the lower slopes of the Tendürek mountain, where former HDP Diyadin district branch chair Cezmi Budak and an HPG guerrilla died, to investigate the army attack.  Pervin Buldan said: “We will go and speak to both sides and to local people and after finding out what happened we will make a statement.”

Pre-election tension strategy

HDP MP and HDK Co-spokesperson Sebahat Tuncel said that the incident in Ağrı had been instigated by the AKP government as part of a deliberate strategy to increase tension prior to the elections. She added that statements by both the President and the General Staff clearly demonstrated that this was the case. Tuncel underlined the fact that no one would benefit from this, and that the HDP had warned countless times that such provocations would take place. Tuncel added that the AKP government was trying to criminalise the HDP, saying: “As support for the HDP increases and the likelihood we will exceed the threshold increases, they are getting uncomfortable. In order to prevent that happening they are using this kind of tension.”

‘This will harm everyone’

Tuncel warned that conflict would be of no benefit to anyone, and that peace was the only option, adding that efforts to prevent the HDP exceeding the threshold would not succeed.