Turkish nationalists rally in Kurdish city

Turkey’s ultra-nationalists have staged a campaign rally in Diyarbakir, the main city in the country’s majority Kurdish southeast, for the first time in 16 years, before Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

The Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, is the group most opposed to greater rights and freedoms for Turkey’s 14-million Kurdish majority – and visits to the city in the past might have been expected to incite a riot.

But the party also draws support from some Kurds who oppose self rule and favour unity and a strong centralised state.

“We are not here to divide the nation. We are not here to divide the regions. We are here for friendship. for brotherhood,” MHP deputy Oktay Vural told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught reports from Diyarbakir.