HDP leader tweets jokingly Obama a 'tyrant'

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Selahettin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey, has released a tweet calling US President Barack Obama a “tyrant” following comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleging the HDP had hired former Obama campaign staff for its political campaigns.

Thursday night the Turkish president said on the Turkish Kanal 24 that a group of “masterminds” run the HDP's election campaign, and that they had also run Obama's election campaign.

In response, Demirtas on his Twitter account jokingly wrote a comment to Obama reading "If this is true, why do you not tell me, tyrant!"

“This team had meetings with leading figures of the HDP party in Istanbul, and at those meetings they also gathered with certain media groups,” Erdogan said in the Wednesday TV appearance.

Speaking to reporters on Erdogan's comments, Demirtas dismissed them, saying he was waiting for Obama to respond, as he reasoned the US president must also find Erdogan’s comments confusing.

"We work with our own mind. We do not need anyone else's mind. People's trust in us is enough," he said.

"[Erdogan and his party] say that we have relations with the Gulen movement, the US, Israel and that they back us," said Demirtas. "If you have evidence, then release it."