“No block” convenes over Middle East

Erdem Gül
 
The number one item on the agenda – Jerusalem and the Middle East – will bring the parties making up the “no block” together in Istanbul for the first time since the 16 April referendum. The CHP and SP general chairs and, in the case of the HDP and Good Party, MP-level delegates, will convene at the Middle East Conference in Şişli. Even though it is devoted to the Middle East, the meeting is significant in this being the first coming together of the no block prior to the elections at which 50%+1 is called for in political terms.
 
Istanbul will today host a meeting which is devoted in name to the Middle East, but will be imbued with special significance in political terms. The Middle East Conference, jointly staged by Şişli Municipality and the Turkish Social, Economic and Political Research Foundation, will see the party leaders and representatives of the no block in the referendum coming together.
 
The conference, which will start today and last three days, is billed as “The Quest to Facilitate Cohabitation and Peace.” Palestinian Ambassador Dr. Faed Mustafa will also deliver a speech devoted to the latest developments in Jerusalem and Palestine.
 
The four no-supporting parties together
 
What basically courts attention at the conference, on which Jerusalem is expected to stamp its mark and at which many local and foreign experts will submit presentations on subjects ranging from Syria to Iraq and Egypt to Tunisia, the Arab Spring and democratisation in the Middle East, are the protocol guests. CHP General Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, SP General Chair Temel Karamollaoğlu, HDP Spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen and Good Party General Administrative Board member Nuri Okutan number among the protocol guests. These figures, who have indicated their intention to attend the conference, will also make the opening speeches today.
 
50%+1 election
 
The conference will see representatives of the HDP and Good Party coming together for the first time since the 16 April referendum within the no alliance. Hence, more is being read into the coming together of the four parties than just Jerusalem and the Middle East.
 
In the referendum process, Kılıçdaroğlu took part in a meeting in remembrance of Necmettin Erbakan and gave warm messages to the SP. Following the referendum, Kılıçdaroğlu has also held meetings with Karamollaoğlu, Akşener and HDP administrators. But the significance of today’s meeting is that the leaders and representatives of the four parties are coming together for the first time. With the Jerusalem and Middle East conference providing the venue for a coming together of the no side in the referendum, the meeting is also seen as being the taking of the first warm step in which they will be photographed together in the run-up to the elections that will be held early or in 2019 and in which 50%+1 is called for. It is said that such images will increase in frequency over 2018, with them raised to the level of a message.
 
For the second round
 
Views have been aired for some time in the four parties that increasing the frequency of meetings between the no-supporting parties and milieus will add further substance to this unity in the run-up to the elections. The framework for material cooperation in the elections is being constructed around the premise that nobody will win the Presidency in the first round, but there will unity around the candidates left in the second round.
 
Gül’s attitude
 
The SP people are also pointing to the written call that the eleventh President Abdullah Gül has made for attendance at their Yenikapı rally. The comments doing the rounds in SP circles about Gül’s attitude are, “For a long time, Abdullah Gül has not taken up any invitation coming to him from the AKP. He does not appear in pictures with AKP people and provides no opportunity for his name to be mentioned along with them. But he has issued a summons to our rally. This is significant for us.”
 
The SP’s Yenikapı rally
 
It is notable that the SP, despite coming to the fore among parties that have reacted most strongly to the USA’s Jerusalem decision, is not acting in unison with the ruling party. The SP is staging a rally in Yenikapı along with civil society organisations to protest the Jerusalem decision. SP people themselves are pointing out that AKP municipalities, which have previously gone out of their way to transport participants to the ruling party’s Yenikapı rallies, are not exerting themselves in the same way over the SP rally. The SP has also criticised the decision passed at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit that East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine in the lead story in the party-affiliated Milli Gazete. The newspaper’s headline read, “Its east and west are ours - Jerusalem is one. It is indivisible.”