SIVAS, Turkey
Turkish president has accused opposition parties of being hands in gloves with a U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, terrorist organization PKK, Armenian diaspora and homosexual associations in their alleged attempts to divide Turkey.
Addressing a rally in Turkey's eastern province of Sivas Thursday, Erdogan said: “Pennsylvania, Kandil, Gezi, Armenian diaspora and homosexual associations are all united together with the main opposition party and the party that claims itself as nationalist.”
Pennsylvania is the U.S. state from where Gulen allegedly runs his network to bring down the current Turkish government; Kandil is the main base camp of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Turkish president alleges was being backed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP); Gezi is the park in Istanbul from where nationwide protests triggered in Turkey in 2013; Republican People's Party or CHP is the secular leftist main opposition party, while Nationalist Movement Party is the rightist nationalist opposition party.
"They continue with the old Turkey's coalition. Like everything, their ideologies are also lies," the president said.
Moreover, Erdogan said that Gulen and the PKK group were “comrades”.
"The treason network in Pennsylvania and blood traders in Kandil have become comrades," he said, adding: "Those who could not be thought to ever come together, now they are coming together."
About Turkey’s response to such designs, he said: “Our struggle will continue forever against those who want to divide and disintegrate this country”.
Referring to the Cumhuriyet newspaper that published images allegedly showing arms being transported to Syria by the Turkish intelligence service, MIT, in southern provinces of Adana and Hatay in January 2014, Erdogan said: "You endeavor to reveal an operation conducted by our Turkish intelligence agency to the world while cooperating with the parallel [state]. This is spying. This is espionage".
Erdogan had lodged Tuesday a criminal complaint against Can Dundar, the editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, for allegedly publishing "false footage and information in an attempt to bring down the Republic of Turkey and prevent the state from carrying out its duties".
"We are in struggle to strengthen and enhance Turkey, but they are in a mood of wishing: 'A crisis happens, Turkey collapses’. We are saying stability and trust, they are saying chaos," Erdogan added.
According to the Turkish government, the Gulen-backed “parallel state” or “parallel structure” refers to a purported group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials embedded in the country's institutions, including the judiciary and police, who are allegedly trying to undermine the Turkish government.
The ruling AK Party is looking to keep its dominance in parliament in the upcoming June 7 general election. It will need at least 330 seats in the 550-member parliament to be able to take either its proposed presidential system or the new constitution to a referendum. It currently has 311, having won over 49 percent of the vote in the 2011 general election.
The HDP, which is standing as a party for the first time in a general election, is seeking to pass the 10 percent threshold that will allow it to enter the Grand National Assembly.
The party currently has lawmakers in the assembly who stood as independents in the 2011 election and joined the party after being elected.
Approximately 56 million Turkish citizens will be eligible to vote in the country's 25th parliamentary election to choose 550 lawmakers.
