Turkey’s National Action Party Resists Peace with PKK
The National Action Party (MHP) is poised to oppose peace with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on the grounds that it will compromise Turkish identity, writes Caleb Lauer.
ISTANBUL —Two dozen retired men, most in woolen blazers, turned their chairs to the café’s center table. A grey-haired member of parliament in a black overcoat had taken a seat, in from a light February rain following Friday prayers at a nearby mosque. Celal Adan, Nationalist Action Party deputy for Istanbul and a politician on the hustings, quickly came to the crux.
“Who is it that wants to break Turkey’s union? Not Turks. Not the state,” Mr. Adan told the men in this working-class Istanbul neighborhood. “The PKK has killed Turkish soldiers, and now they say ‘Let’s make peace’?”
