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Turkish prosecutor probes main Kurdish
party over convention
27.6.2006
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ANKARA, June 26,
2006 (AFP), - A Turkish prosecutor on Monday
launched an investigation into whether the first
convention here Sunday of the country's main Kurdish
party amounted to propaganda for separatist Kurdish
rebels, the Anatolia news agency reported.
If the prosecutor decides to take the Democratic
Society Party (DTP) to court at the conclusion of
his probe, it could be banned.
The investigation was called after participants at
the convention waved Kurdish flags and brandished
posters of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah
Ocalan.
Several shouted slogans in favour of Ocalan's
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been
waging a bloody battle for self-rule in Turkey's
mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984.
"It is not possible for us to distance ourselves
from the PKK. A peace strategy that excludes the PKK
cannot be successful," media reports quoted Aysel
Tugluk, the DTP's former co-chair, as saying at the
gathering.
Representatives from Sinn Fein and Batasuna, the
political wings of, respectively, the Irish
Republican Army (IRA) and the Basque separatist
movement ETA, as well as members of the European
Parliament attended the convention.
It ended with Tugluk withdrawing from the party's
leadership and leaving co-chair Ahmet Turk, a
veteran Kurdish politician, alone at the helm,
because Turkish legislation on political parties
does not allow two leaders.
The DTP was set up in November with a pledge to try
to resolve the long-standing Kurdish conflict in
Turkey through peaceful means.
But it has so far failed to achieve any progress,
with PKK violence mounting in the southeast.
The DTP has come under fire for sympathizing with
the PKK, which is blacklisted as a terror group by
Turkey, the European Union and the United States,
and dozens of its members face prosecution for
supporting the rebels.
The DTP advocates broader cultural and political
rights for Kurds and campaigns for the abolition of
a 10 percent electoral threshold required to enter
parliament.
Kurdish politicians in Turkey are routinely regarded
with suspicion and often seen as instruments of the
PKK.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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