The Turkish president is under attack over his handling of the Kurdish question. The candidate of the opposition alliance for the Turkish presidential election, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, accused Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday (April 18th) of "stigmatising" this community in the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections on 14th May.

"Currently, millions of Kurds are treated as terrorists," denounced the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP, social-democratic) in a short video published on social networks.

"Every time the palace sees that it is going to lose the elections, a collective stigmatisation of the Kurds begins. It's really embarrassing," added Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, from Dersim province (renamed Tunceli in the east), which has a Kurdish and Alevi majority.

"My dear friends, do not be fooled by their propaganda!" said the National Alliance candidate.

The opposition alliance, formed by six parties with varying tendencies, had hitherto been little vocal on the Kurdish question, a sensitive subject because of the presence within it of the Good Party, an influential nationalist party.

The Kurds, numbering around 15 million in Turkey, are seen as the kingmakers of next month's elections, billed as the most dangerous for Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to power in 2003 as prime minister.

Kiliçdaroglu accused of links with PKK

The pro-Kurdish HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party, Turkey's third largest political force) announced at the end of March that it would not present a presidential candidate, giving tacit support to Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.

>> Read also: the pro-Kurdish HDP, a party with "decisive and capital" weight

The latter said he would release Selahattin Demirtas, a leading figure of the HDP, imprisoned since 2016 for "terrorist propaganda", once elected.

President Erdogan has since repeated that Kemal Kiliçdaroglu "receives his instructions" directly from the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan, a major rear base of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been waging an armed struggle against the Turkish army since 1984.

The Turkish government accuses the HDP of being linked to the PKK, a group described as "terrorist" by Ankara and its Western allies.

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu had previously denounced the "discrimination" against the Kurdish language in Turkey, as well as the replacement in recent years in the Kurdish-majority south-east of dozens of HDP mayors by government-appointed administrators.

With AFP

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