Turkey Moves to ban Kurish Party

[Harold F. Schiffman]

November 16, 2007

Turkey Moves to Ban Kurdish Party

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:22 a.m. ET

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish authorities on Friday took steps to ban the
country's leading pro-Kurdish political party and expel several of its
lawmakers from parliament on charges of separatism. The Democratic Society
Party, which won 20 seats in parliament in July, last week called for
autonomy for Kurds living in the country's southeast.  The call came amid
tension over how to deal with separatist Kurdish rebels, with the military
preparing for a possible cross-border offensive against their bases in
northern Iraq.

Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya said in an indictment ''that
speeches and actions by party leaders have proved that the party has
become a focal point of activities against the sovereignty of the state
and indivisible unity of the country and the nation.'' He said prosecutors
hoped the legal case would shut down the party, which he described as
''based on blood and orders from the terrorist organization of the PKK,''
the acronym for the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party.

The prosecutor's office on Friday sent the 120-page indictment to the
country's Constitutional Court. Several predecessors of the pro-Kurdish
party were banned by Turkey's Constitutional Court on similar grounds and
for alleged ties to rebels.

''We believe that the policy of lynching a political party should be
abandoned,'' Ahmet Turk, a lawmaker with the party, told Dogan news
aqency.

Nurettin Demirtas, the party's chairman, said the indictment would harm
Turkey's efforts to join the European union, which has pressured the
country to grant more rights to its Kurdish minority.

Several party officials helped facilitate the Nov. 4 release of eight
soldiers who had been abducted by Kurdish fighters, traveling to the rebel
base in northern Iraq where they were held. The party demanded more rights
for the Kurdish minority and autonomy for Kurds living in the southeast
during a party congress last week.

Turkish leaders have accused the pro-Kurdish party of having ties to the
rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Turkish leaders insist the party
should declare the PKK a terrorist organization to prove its allegiance to
Turkey. Both the U.S. and the European Union have labeled the PKK a
terrorist organization.

DEHAP, the predecessor of the present party, dissolved itself in 2005 as
prosecutors tried to close it. Yalcinkaya accused leaders of the current
party of establishing the new party under orders from Abdullah Ocalan, the
imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief who is serving a life term on a prison
island near Istanbul.

''By implementing orders they received from the leader of a terrorist
organization in prison, (they) have openly shown their allegiance to the
terrorist organization and its leader,'' Yalcinkaya said.

Yalcinkaya said the party should be prevented from participating in
elections during the expected trial period. Local elections are scheduled
for March 2008.

The chief prosecutor asked the Constitutional Court to ban 221 members of
the party, including eight lawmakers, from taking part in politics for
five years after the closure of the party.

If the party is disbanded by the Constitutional Court, those eight
legislators will be kicked out of the Parliament -- despite a warning by
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday that excluding Kurdish
lawmakers could ''push them toward the mountains'' and bring them closer
to the rebel organization, the daily Sabah reported Friday.

''We should especially encourage them to make politics,'' Sabah quoted
Erdogan as saying. ''Let them make politics within limits of the
constitution.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Turkey-Kurds.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

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