Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Sahin has announced that suggestions for changes in Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code would be brought before parliament towards the end of 2007. He added that Article 301 was "not the only issue that needed to be dealt with" in the EU negotiations.

Abolition not planned 

According to Ntvmsnbc news, Sahin said that "some problems in its application are slowly disappearing anyway as judges and prosecutors are considering the cases that come to them in the light of decisions made at the European Court of Human Rights." He added, "But nevertheless, we are planning to revise the article. We are not planning its abolition because many EU countries have similar articles."

While Article 301 is being protected, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has come under attack ever since three DTP MPs took part in a delegation to receive the soldier hostages handed over by the PKK in Northern Iraq last week.

Türk: We support unity and integrity 

DTP parliamentary group leader Ahmet Türk called on the Prime Minister to enter a dialogue at his party's parliamentary assembly: "We have said it hundreds of times: we are citizens of this country, this flag is a symbol for us all, we support unity and integrity."

He accused "some circles" of having started conspiracies against the party. Referring to recent claims that DTP's MP Fatma Kurtulan from Van, in south-eastern Turkey, had been in a PKK camp in the past, he said: "Although it is known that deputy parliamentary group leader Fatma Kurtulan has been part of democratic politics since the 1990s, some people are trying to show her as 'the MP brought into parliament from the mountains'."

"Either blind or malevolent" 

Reiterating his party's support for unity and integrity, Türk said that the party's proposals were all aimed at strengthening this unity:

"Our suggestions are made to strengthen, not divide Turkey. They are suggestions which protect our flag, which is our country's shared symbol, more than anyone else. We do not want a nation breaking up, we want a stronger, democratic nationalisation. The only thing we want is more democracy. Those who insist on calling us 'separatist' despite our discourses are either blind or malevolent."

Saying that his party's MPs were often told to remember their pledge, Türk said: "We also want to remind them of something. There is rule of law, there is a democratic republic, there is respect for democracy, democratic rights are being used. Bu you are not discussing the use of such democratic rights."

Devlet Bahceli, chair of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has called on the Prime Minister to lift the immunity of the MPs of the "political institution called the DTP". He said that Turkey had come to "a historica crossroads, a moment of decision and fate, in the struggle against armed terrorism and ethnic separatism". (NZ/AG)