Grey Wolves
Grey Wolves (Bozkurt in Turkish) is the common name for the Turkish National Movement Party ("Milliyetci Hareket Partisi", MHP, aka Nationalist Action Party), a fascist movement founded by Alparslan Turkes in 1961, like all other parties, was banned after the military coup of September 12, 1980. The National Workers Party ("Milliyetci Calisma Partisi", MCP) was founded in 1983 as a successor to the MHP, which as of 1992 is once again known as the MHP.
A significant pillar of the MHP's ideology is the dream of creating the Turan, the Great Turkish Empire, including Turkic peoples in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
The MHP is anti-Kurdish and supported the government's military approach to the insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey (Kurdistan), and it opposes any concessions to Kurdish separatists. MHP members acted as paramilitary auxiliaries to the Turkish army in this war and were responsible for several massacres and atrocities. Grey Wolves have also been responsible for terrorist attacks on May Day marchers in Istanbul in 1998 and massacres of members of Turkey's Alevi minority in 1978.
Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a former Grey Wolf. The Grey Wolves have been accused of assassinating, on July 6, 1996, the prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adali, because of his criticism of the Rauf Denktash regime and, more generally, of Turkey's policies in Cyprus. In 1996 a Turkish deputy from Tansu Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) revealed that Abdullah Chatli, the leader of the Grey Wolves, was responsible for arson fires in Greece's islands. Chatli was killed in a 1996 car accident in Turkey which brought to light the relations between Turkish mafia and the government.
