Turkey opened a new legislative year on Wednesday, with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and two other opposition parties boycotting the parliamentary session, which featured a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Erdoğan addressed parliament at 2 p.m. local time, saying his government will launch a broad transformation across industry, technology, agriculture and energy. He set inflation targets of below 30 percent by the end of 2025 and below 20 percent in 2026, repeating that the high cost of living remain a priority for his government.
The chamber reflected divisions. Lawmakers from the Good (İYİ) Party and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) stood as the president entered but did not applaud, unlike members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its far-right ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who both stood and clapped. The CHP benches were empty. The Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) and the Labor Party (EMEP) also boycotted the session.
The CHP’s protest follows a yearlong crackdown on the party. More than 500 people linked to the CHP or the İstanbul Municipality have been detained or arrested since last year’s local elections, when the CHP became the country’s largest party and the AKP suffered its worst defeat.
CHP Chairman Özgür Özel said his party is boycotting to protest what he called rule outside constitutional limits. He accused Erdoğan of seeking legitimacy abroad, citing recent remarks by US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who said Erdoğan sought legitimacy and that the US could provide it. Özel said the opposition would not contribute to legitimacy in parliament under such conditions.
MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli sharply criticized the boycott, calling it an “attack on the national will.” He accused the CHP of showing “totalitarian disregard for democracy.”
TİP chair Erkan Baş spent the day at İstanbul’s Silivri Prison visiting former MP Can Atalay, a TİP member who lost his seat after the Supreme Court of Appeals twice defied a Constitutional Court ruling in his favor. The parliament speaker later read the appeals court decision in the chamber, stripping Atalay of his seat. Baş said his party chose a symbolic action to stress that parliament must serve voters, not the presidency.
Erdoğan devoted part of his speech to security. He thanked Bahçeli and the DEM Party for backing renewed peace efforts aimed at ending Turkey’s armed conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He praised the cross-party “National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy” commission, which has met 12 times since August.
In October 2024 Bahçeli crossed the aisle to shake hands with DEM Party lawmakers, sparking talk of a new peace process. Through the winter and spring of 2025, a DEM Party delegation met PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan several times on İmralı Island where he has been imprisoned since 1999.
In late February Öcalan called on militants to lay down their arms and for the PKK to disband. The group declared a cease-fire on March 1, held a congress in early May and later announced that its armed structure would dissolve and shift to legal politics. On July 11 a symbolic weapon-burning took place near Sulaymaniyah. Parliament then formed the 48-member commission to gather proposals on legal steps.
The government links that process to a broader agenda. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has previously mentioned a new judicial package that may include measures on harsher sentences for juvenile convicts, which is expected to be on parliament’s agenda this year. Leaders also point to expected work on a new constitution. The state budget will dominate the calendar, setting the pace for other bills.