AKP executive ridiculed for claiming US President Biden has Kurdish roots

An executive from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has claimed that US President Joe Biden has Kurdish roots, leading to jokes and ridicule among social media users in Turkey.

Orhan Miroglu, a member of the AKP’s Central Decision and Management Board (MKYK) and a former deputy from Mardin of Kurdish descent, on Thursday claimed on social media that Biden’s ancestors were of Kurdish origin and that they migrated to the US from Armenia, Turkish Minute reported.

“A Kurdish friend of mine recently said, and I found it hard to believe but, someone told him that Biden’s real name was Cimoye Bahattin Aga and that he is originally from the Biruki tribe, with ancestors who migrated from [Armenia’s capital of] Yerevan to the United States,” Miroglu said in a tweet.

Hundreds of social media users commented on Miroglu’s claim on Twitter, with one user asking, “He’s joking, right?”

“That claim is right, and I also heard that he [Biden] supports the HDP [pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party],” another Twitter user sarcastically said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP government accuse the HDP of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union that took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. The HDP denies such links.

Many users also brought to mind a claim previously put forward by Kadir Misiroglu, a self-proclaimed Turkish historian and a radical xenophobe known to have close ties to Erdogan, that Shakespeare was not English.

Misiroglu claimed back in 2016 that Shakespeare’s original name was “Sheikh Pir” and that he was a secret Muslim. “Sheikh” means Islamic scholar and “pir” means “old, elderly,” he explained during a program on the pro-government Beyaz TV.

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