Six opposition parties agree to support single candidate

Six opposition parties in Turkey released a statement after a nine-hour meeting on Thursday that they have decided to support a single candidate in the coming presidential election, and that they will support a proposal for the elections to be held before 6 April.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Good Party, Felicity Party, Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), Future Party and Democrat Party (DP) also stressed in the joint statement that the leaders of six parties will now engage in dialogue to come to an agreement regarding the opposition bloc's joint candidate.

The next meeting of the six party leaders will be held on 26 January, the statement said.

The six leaders also criticized "the silence" of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Interior Minister, the Justice Minister, and the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) after the assassination of former Grey Wolves leader Sinan Ates on 30 December.

They said:

"We cannot talk about public order and a democratic state of law in a country where executions are carried out by mafia groups, where gangs roam freely and attack those who do not share their opinions, emboldened by a policy of impunity that has protected assailants who earlier carried attacks against politicians, academicians and journalists."

The leaders refrained from commenting on the recent decision by the Constitutional Court to block the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) bank account that holds funds provided by the Turkish Treasury in the context of financial support to political parties.