PEACE AND DEMOCRACY PARTY

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) announced that they would start using both the Kurdish and the Turkish language before according legal amendments would be enforced. Thereupon, President Abdullah Gül and the President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), Mehmet Ali Şahin, declared, "This is a potential reason to shut the party down".

BDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirbaş said during a visit to the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority city in south-eastern Turkey, "We will have sign boards in both languages. Our friends are still busy with the preparations, saying that villages and cemeteries should get back their old names. Especially in this region, life will be bilingual in all aspects".

Gül:  Potential reason for closure of a party in current legislation

President Gül answered the journalists' questions at a reception held subsequent to the prize giving ceremony of the "Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award" in the presidential mansion in Çankaya/Ankara.

"550 members of parliament swore an oath, a political party can be closed according to the current legislation. Kurdish cannot be spoken until Article 2 of the Constitution and Article 81 of the Political Parties Law have not been changed. If such an amendment will come on my desk I will transfer it to the Constitutional Commission", Gül said.

Şahin: Everybody should show common sense

Parliament President Şahin said, "There are six or seven Turkish members of parliament in Germany. None of them can speak Turkish in the German parliament. I invite everybody to reason and common sense. If they insist on this attitude, it might transform into a reason to close the party down".

AKP Deputy PM spoke Kurdish with BDP members in parliament

BDP Deputy Sırrı Sakık from the south-eastern city of Muş and Deputy Hasip Kaplan from Şırnak (south-east) spoke Kurdish at Parliament on the occasion of the Human Rights Day on 10 December. Sakık started his speech, "On the Human Rights Day I want to greet you in my mother tongue". Kaplan read out a poem of the renowned Kurdish poet Cigerxun.

State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spoke Kurdish as well in the Tuesday session (14 December) of the parliament, saying, "God bless you". Arınç replied again in Kurdish, "Thank you, esteemed Minister, God bless you for speaking Kurdish". (BB/VK)