Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Group Chairman Nuri Yaman said in the party's regular weekly general meeting that almost 800 Kurdish politicians were arrested in the course of political operations throughout the last year. Yaman reminded the latest incident when Nuri Güneş, Mayor of Iğdır (a province on the Armenian border) was arrested together with another seven people, among them members of the city council. "The Justice and Development Party (AKP) takes revenge by arresting the mayors of the provinces they did not win in the elections", Yaman argued.

Yaman stated that executives of the recently closed pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and of BDP were taken into custody together with about 20 Kurdish artists and intellectuals in the scope of so-called "KCK" operations. KCK (Koma Civaken Kurdistan) is the Union of Kurdistan Societies, the umbrella organisation that includes the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Numerous cases have been filed against Kurdish artists, Yaman claimed and urged the government to stop the operations.

Intervention against the people's free political will

"The arrests of mayors are nothing else but interventions against the will of the people. They try to intimidate DTP Chairman Osman Baydemir of the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality with notifications and threats. Is this not the indication for a new complot?" Yaman pointed out. He criticized that what is currently experienced is nothing else but a coup attempt of AKP on behalf of the democratic initiative and the AKP government's imposing the 12 September on the Kurds, referring to the military coup in 1980.

Yaman stated that the operations are carried out on the directive of Interior Minister Beşir Atalay. "The aim is to eliminate the BDP staff, the elected mayors and the people's free political will in order to make room for AKP politics", Yaman added. "The coup attempts are carried out within the scope of the AKP's democratic initiative itself"; he argued and compared the incidents with the military coup of 1980, saying that "the AKP government imposed another 12 September to the Kurds".

"This process increasingly pervades Turkey from the east to the west. While opposing the abettors of the "Balyoz" coup plans in the west, AKP should also stop the putchists in the east at the same time. This is the only way to make both banks of Euphrates get closer", Yaman stated. He called all Turkish democratic forces to strive together with intellectuals and writers. (BB/VK)