On July 10, the ministers of the new Cabinet took their oaths at the Turkish parliament. When Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu came to the podium, members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) left the hall in protest. Only three days earlier, Soylu had been sworn in as a lawmaker at the parliament and CHP members had turned their backs to him to signal their disapproval.
The main reason for this protest was Soylu’s harsh comments and order that banned CHP officials from attending soldiers’ funerals. On June 28, Soylu told journalists that he had asked governors not to allow the CHP’s provincial chiefs to attend the funerals. The funerals are a frequent occurrence because of the enduring conflict with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Soylu said the CHP supports PKK’s representatives in the parliament, pointing to alleged CHP support for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) during the election. Throughout the election campaign, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly said that only the PKK and the CHP would like to see the HDP pass the national 10% vote threshold to have seats in the parliament.
Despite all the efforts to restrict its campaigning, the HDP passed the threshold and became third-largest party in the parliament. The HDP ran alone, not as a part of an election coalition with the CHP. The HDP’s success despite all odds led pro-government media to start an intense propaganda campaign labeling the CHP as an “HDP collaborator” and step up efforts to portray the HDP as terrorist. Soylu suggested that CHP members instead attend funerals of PKK militants. He said, “If they [the CHP and the PKK] were together at the ballot box, they can be together at the [PKK] funeral.”
The story behind Soylu’s ban, as he explained it, rests on a harsh phone conversation he had with Pervin Buldan, one of the co-chairs of the HDP. After the PKK killed a shopkeeper in Agri province who supported the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on June 26, Soylu told Buldan, “We will show your limits. You have no right to survive.” Buldan made an official complaint of being threatened with death; while Soylu accepted that he had made these statements, he said they were not a personal threat against Buldan. Then the government’s focus turned toward the other opposition party, the CHP.
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