KDP leader talks over the phone with leader of Hezbollah offshoot Huda Par

A month to the elections in Turkey, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) spoke on the phone with the leader of Huda Par (the Free Cause Party), a small Islamist party who is part of the alliance led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey.

"Huda Par chairman Zekeriya Yapicioglu talked over the phone with KDP chairman Masoud Barzani," Huda Par briefly said Thursday on Twitter, without providing any information on the content of the talk.

The parliamentary candidates of Huda Par will run under AKP in the election on 14 May while it will support Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential race.

The party has its roots in the armed Hezbollah group (not related to the Lebanese Shi'a organization by the same name), who is responsible for the murder of hundreds of people including Kurdish dissidents, rights defenders and journalists throughout the 1990s and for the assassination of a Turkish police chief and several police officers in 2001. The group assisted the state forces in illegal operations involving extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in a campaign to crush the Kurdish democratic opposition.

Journalist Amed Dicle commented on the phone talk between Barzani and Yapicioglu saying:

"Barzani earlier stepped in to ensure that Huda Par officially provided support for the government of AKP and MHP [the far right Nationalist Movement Party]. Barzani's advisor Dara Bilek was engaged in talks to this end with Hudapar's officials, and tried to convince them."

Huda Par had announced on 14 March that a meeting was held between the party officials, the chairman of a Kurdistan Democratic Party established in Turkey, and Dara Bilek from the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI).

Masoud Barzani, the former president of KRI, is assumed to have a great influence on the politics of the Kurdistan Regional Government as the leader of the ruling KDP. He is also the father of KRI President Masrour Barzani.