Turkey Denies Opposition Presence in Military Funerals

Turkey’s Interior Minister drew ire of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) when he banned CHP officials from participating in funerals organized for soldiers killed during clashes with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.

CHP slammed the new policy as discriminatory and polarizing.

“I sent an instruction to governors through my undersecretary not to allow CHP local officials to join funerals of the martyrs,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Thursday.

CHP Spokesman Bulent Tezcan immediately responded on behalf of the party and criticized the move.

“He moved to divide society through funerals of martyrs. This is a disastrous and shameful statement,” Tezcan said.

“Interior Minister must immediately resign. It is impossible for such a mindset to serve as an interior minister in this country,” he added.

Soylu raised eyebrows earlier this week when he threatened pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) co-chair Pervin Buldan in a phone conversation. “You no longer have a right to live,” he told Buldan, the HDP co-chair said at a press conference on Wednesday.