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Bloody riots put Turkey's main Kurdish
party in the hot seat
5.4.2006
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ANKARA, April 5,
2006 (AFP) - 12h45 - A week of deadly ethnic riots
has further restricted the manoeuvering room of
Turkey's main Kurdish party, accused of
collaborating with an armed separatist rebellion,
experts said Wednesday.
In a harsh warning over its suspected ties, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out any
dialogue with the Democratic Society party (DTP)
until it openly condemns the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
"First, you should come out and declare that the PKK
terrorist organization is a terrorist organization,"
he said in comments directed to the DTP but made
Tuesday before lawmakers from his Justice and
Development Party (AKP). "Then we can speak."
Ahmet Turk, a veteran Kurdish politician and
co-chair of the DTP, said he was upset that Erdogan
would invite leaders of the radical Palestinian
organisation Hamas to Ankara but at the same time
refuse to meet "a legal party" such as the DTP.
Turkish authorities say the riots that claimed 15
lives in the past week were orchestrated in part by
PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan from the prison island of
Imrali where he has been serving a life sentence in
solitary confinement since 1999.
Officials believe the PKK -- blacklisted as a terror
group by Turkey, the United States and the European
Union -- continues to fan unrest in a bid to
position itself as an indispensable interlocutor in
future negotiations.
Ankara categorically refuses any talks with the
group.
Authorities also accused the DTP of toeing the PKK
line during the unrest, which began in the southeast
and spread to Istanbul, by repeating the banned
organization's appeal for civil disobedience.
During the unrest DTP officials were accused of
colluding with rioters, urging shopkeepers to close
their shutters, and calling on Kurds to resist the
security forces in the southeast, the theatre of
long-running fighting between PKK rebels and the
army.
The clashes, which left hundreds injured and saw
hundreds of others detained, were the most serious
urban disturbances to hit the region since the PKK
called off a five-year unilateral truce in June
2004.
Like the series of pro-Kurdish parties that preceded
it, the DTP could find itself facing a possible ban
as a result of recent statements by DTP officials,
terrorism expert Ercan Citliogu said.
"The organic link between the PKK and the DTP was
confirmed during the protests," he told AFP. "I
would not be surprised if legal steps were taken
soon to ban the party."
He said the DTP had failed to distance itself from
the ideology of Ocalan and the PKK.
The DTP, which is not represented in parliament, was
founded in 2004 by Kurdish former lawmakers --
including rights activist Leyla Zana, who spent a
decade in jail for links with the PKK -- saying they
favour dialogue between Turks and Kurds.
It succeeded the DEHAP, which disbanded as it faced
a possible ban for alleged links with PKK rebels and
suspected electoral fraud in the 2002 parliamentary
vote.
Metin Tekce, a DTP member and the mayor of Hakkari,
on the border with Iraq and Iran, drew strong
criticism recently when he said the PKK was not a
terrorist organisation.
Osman Baydemir, the popular DTP mayor of Diyarbakir,
the biggest city of the southeast, is under judicial
investigation for "praising terrorism" when he
hailed the "courage" of young rioters there as he
tried to reason with them.
More than 37,000 people have died in fighting in
southeastern Turkey between the army and the PKK
since it took up arms for Kurdish independence in
1984.
AFP
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