Özgür Özel, head of Türkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), held a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the party announced late Sunday. Özel was unable to attend Abbas’ historic address to Parliament last week after he suffered from a broken leg due to an accident. Abbas invited Özel to Palestine during the call.
Özel underlined his party’s support for the Palestinian cause, noting that he wrote letters to 119 leaders across the world for recognition of the State of Palestine and brought attention to massacres in Gaza. “The foundation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital is essential. We support the two-state solution,” Özel told Abbas, echoing the view of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He thanked Abbas for visiting Türkiye and expressed endorsement of the Palestinian president’s decision to visit Gaza as he announced in his parliamentary address.
For his part, Abbas told Özel that they appreciated CHP’s support of the Palestinian cause throughout its history and said they would never forget it. He acknowledged that Özel, as CHP chair and deputy chair of Socialist International, always brought the Palestinian matter to the spotlight.
In his first remarks after Abbas’ speech last week, Özel told Parliament that they fully supported the Palestinian people and that their relations with Palestinians are based on relations established between the party’s third chair and former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit and legendary Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. “We preserve this stance, we preserve the stance of Deniz Gezmiş and his friends,” he said, referring to a prominent student activist who was hanged in 1972 for the robbery of a bank and abduction of U.S. soldiers. Gezmiş had undergone training in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) camps in Jordan before his death.
Özel announced in February that he would visit Palestine soon but was forced to delay his visit, citing the ongoing conflict. He has previously called on Erdoğan to go to Palestine with the leaders of all political parties to demonstrate Turkish solidarity for Palestinians. Ankara has been a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause and Erdoğan’s government continues diplomatic and legal efforts to resolve the conflict, including direct talks with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as Hamas officials.
The Turkish public’s outrage too has been intense since a new round of the Palestine-Israel conflict erupted on Oct. 7, with mass protests nationwide condemning Israel’s relentless attacks, calling for a permanent cease-fire and public agencies, municipalities, universities and even Parliament taking part in a boycott of goods of Israeli origin. But Özel’s party earlier played down boycott calls and protests, accusing Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of using the Palestinian cause as “propaganda” for the local elections held in March.
