President Erdogan and opposition unite in Turkey rally. More than a million Turks join president and opposition leaders in Istanbul rally, denouncing last month’s failed coup.A pro-democracy rally in response to Turkey’s  failed coup attempt is being held in Istanbul, uniting the president, the prime minister and two opposition leaders on the same platform for the first time in years.More than a million people, many waving the Turkish flag, attended the Sunday afternoon rally in Yenikapi square. “The world is looking at you now,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the demonstrators as he opened his speech. “You should be proud of yourselves. Each and everyone of you fought for freedom and democracy. All of you are heroes.”Erdogan said that the Turkish people have proven that “we are mighty enough to foil any coup”, condemning those behind the coup plot as a “terrorist organisation”. The president also said that had the coup attempt succeeded, “We would have lost our homeland, and offered it to our enemy in a silver platter.”As part of its anti-coup campaign, Ankara has been encouraging nightly rallies throughout the country, culminating in Sunday’s grand finale.The “Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally” is meant to represent the unity of the country, and Erdogan had urged attendees to bring only the Turkish flag, instead of party banners.Around 13,000 people, in addition to police officers, were on duty to run the event.Helicopters, ambulances and over 700 medical personnel were also on duty.Similar rallies will also be held simultaneously across the country, according to officials from ruling Justice and Development Party.Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, who is also the leader of the AKP, as well as the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli were present at the rally.Kilicdaroglu and Bahceli addressed the rally before handing the stage to the prime minister and the president.In his speech, Erdogan also said that he will support the restoration of the death penalty should the parliament pass it, saying that countries like the US and China also have capital punishment.  Meanwhile, Yildirim praised those “who fought bravely and stood in defiance” of the coup attempt. For his part, opposition leader Kilicdaroglu said the failed coup has opened a “new door of compromise” in politics, adding that politics must now be kept out of the mosques, courthouses and barracks.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party’s (HDP) co-leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were not invitedThe HDP opposed the coup, but has been excluded because it allegedly supports the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).Galip Dalay, columnist and Turkey analyst, told Al Jazeera that including HDP would have “completed the picture”. But he called the event as significant, as it showed “unity across political spectrum” in the country. Turkey, the US and the European Union designate the PKK, an armed group that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy since 1984, as a “terrorist organisation”.

Erdogan has previously called for HDP members to be prosecuted, accusing them of being the PKK’s political wing.The HDP is the third-biggest party in parliament. It denies having direct links with the PKK and promotes a negotiated end to the Kurdish conflict, which claimed hundreds of lives since a peace process, once led by Erdogan and his governing party, collapsed in 2015.