June
23, 2011
DIYARBAKIR, The Kurdish
region of Turkey, — A leading Kurdish politician
warned Turkey of renewed bloodshed Wednesday after
the authorities
stripped a
prominent Kurdish activist of his seat in
parliament, Anatolia news agency reported.
“This is a decision to drag Turkey into chaos... to
push our people into an environment of conflict,”
Ahmet Turk, head of a Kurdish umbrella organisation,
said in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in in
the Kurdish region in southeast Turkey [Turkey
Kurdistan].
“The state, the government and the judiciary are
trying to block our efforts to create a democratic
political ground” to end the 26-year Kurdish
conflict, he charged, according to Anatolia.
The warning followed a decision by the Higher
Electoral Board late
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Ahmet Turk, head of a Kurdish umbrella organisation. |
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Tuesday to strip veteran Kurdish activist Hatip
Dicle of the parliamentary seat he won in the June
12 elections over a terror-related conviction.
Dicle, in jail since 2010 as part of a separate
case, had been expected to be freed to assume his
seat in parliament.
Also Wednesday, two policemen were killed in a
landmine blast in eastern Turkey, security sources
said, adding that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) was the prime suspect in the attack.
The policemen were on an intelligence mission in a
rural area in Tunceli province when their car ran
over the landmine.
The renewed tensions followed a PKK statement Monday
outlining conditions for the extension of a
unilateral truce it had declared in August last year
until the June 12 elections.
The statement demanded that Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan announce an end to military
operations against the PKK and that parliament
invite jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to peace
negotiations.
After his sweeping victory in the polls, Erdogan
promised to seek compromise with opposition forces
to draw up a new liberal constitution for Turkey.
The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which
is seen as close to the PKK,www.ekurd.netemerged
from the polls as a force to be reckoned with,
clinching 36 parliamentary seats, a record for the
Kurdish minority.
Dicle was among candidates the BDP fielded as
independents to get around a 10-percent national
threshold that parties are required to pass to enter
parliament.
The electoral board however ruled that Dicle was not
eligible to stand in the elections because of a
20-month jail sentence he had received under
Turkey’s anti-terror law.
The legal jumble arose from the fact that the
Appeals Court upheld Dicle’s sentence just four days
before the polls, when the list of candidates had
been confirmed.
Dicle was convicted over a speech deemed “propaganda
for an armed terrorist organisation” — a reference
to the PKK.
In 1991, the 57-year-old became of one of the first
Kurdish nationalists to win seats in Turkey’s
parliament.
The group was banished from parliament in 1994 after
their party was banned for links to the PKK.
Dicle and several colleagues — among them iconic
activist Leyla Zana, who also won a parliamentary
seat in the June 12 polls — ended up in jail before
being released in 2004 after 10 years behind bars.
Since it was established in 1984, the Kurdistan
Workers' Party PKK has been fighting the Turkish
state, which still denies the constitutional
existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in
the south east of the country.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region
and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who
constitute the greatest minority in Turkey,
numbering more than 20 million. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish
PKK rebels.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees,
lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the
way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within
Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against
the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish
constitution.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
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author or news agency, AFP | ekurd.net | Agencies
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