Öncü Durmuş
Following the decision of absolute nullity applied to the CHP, and most recently the referral of nine CHP MPs to discipline with a request for expulsion, former CHP Party Assembly member and Cumhuriyet newspaper columnist Prof. Dr. Örsan K. Öymen evaluated the ongoing process.
Öymen said, "First of all, the neo-Ottomanist rhetoric used by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the definition of an all-out incitement to uprising, and the declaration of the mentioned mayors, bureaucrats, and party members as guilty by completely disregarding even the presumption of innocence during the government's operations stand out as a reflection of the AKP’s language. In this sense, Erdoğan, Bahçeli, and Kılıçdaroğlu are in a position where they say the same things based on the same justifications."
KILIÇDAROĞLU IS IN COMMUNICATION WITH THE AKP
Öymen spoke as follows: "Moreover, even if I do not present this as absolute proof, the rumours we have received indicate that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is in direct or indirect communication with the AKP. When considering past events and today, Kılıçdaroğlu himself is an ideological problem. With his leaning of the party to the right during the Nation Alliance process and his abandonment of the CHP's principles, the matter from that period until today is not merely a matter of a seat."
HE SAID PURIFICATION IN SEPTEMBER 2025
Touching upon a telephone conversation he had with Kılıçdaroğlu, Öymen said, "He called me in September 2025 after the article titled 'The Vicious Circle in the CHP' that I wrote in the Cumhuriyet newspaper. Following my writing about the process extending to Kılıçdaroğlu's chairmanship, while he raised no general objection to the article and expressed opinions on some secondary matters, he stated that the party needed purification. Even though I specifically asked him whether he was involved in the AKP’s pressure operations against the CHP, he could not say. In other words, before these discussions became so inflamed, prior to mid-September, I believe Kılıçdaroğlu knew things would come to this point and was securing a position for himself back then. Even this actually demonstrates that Kılıçdaroğlu is both in communication with the AKP and at the centre of these events."
THE "OUR BOYS" OF THIS PERIOD
"Consequently, Kılıçdaroğlu does not hold back from supporting Erdoğan's persistent explanations regarding the CHP's internal matter with his rhetoric of 'Moral purification is necessary'. However, this is not solely an AKP-Kılıçdaroğlu collaboration. The aspect of the matter that goes beyond a seat is related to the interests of imperialism and its intervention in the country today, just like what happened on 12 September. The US's 'Our boys' of the post-12 September coup are back in play today. For that reason, this collaboration is between the US, the AKP, and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Everything Kılıçdaroğlu is doing right now is materialising through this operation of imperialism. For this, they needed to completely abolish the democratic order. In short, we can say that what is being experienced today is no different from 12 September."
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Prof. Dr. Örsan Öymen: ABD, AKP ve Kılıçdaroğlu işbirliği var, published in BirGün newspaper on June 11, 2026.
