BDP to end boycott and take parliamentary oath

Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, which refused to take oaths after the general elections in protest at the continued imprisonment of six colleagues, announced that it will end its boycott and enter the Parliament on October 1st

Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş announced their plans to end the parliamentary boycott and return to the legislature.The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, has announced plans to end its parliamentary boycott and return to the legislature Saturday following a series of discussions in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

“We would like to thank everyone who supported our boycott,” BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş said Wednesday following the party’s group meeting. “Our decision was a position we took under the conditions of that time. Today we need to take another position. We want to announce that we will join Parliament on Oct. 1.”

Demirtaş said the BDP understood the people who had called for them not to re-enter Parliament, but added that the party decided that the best way to foster peace during the current period of tension was to rejoin the legislature.

“At this point, in order to defend peace, to support our people from Parliament, to realize the promises we made to those who placed their trust in us and to explicitly show the two-facedness of the AKP [the governing Justice and Development Party], we have made this decision,” Demirtaş said.

BDP deputies had refused to take their parliamentary oaths after the June 12 general elections in protest at the continued imprisonment of six colleagues who were elected in the polls.

“Despite our good intentions, we didn’t receive any positive signs from the AKP. Plus, there is a psychological war [against the Kurds] through the media and through the KCK operations in which many have been detained by the police,” he said. “Ours was a search for peace. Still, we draw our power from the people, and our people have given their support to see us in the Parliament.

”The Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, is an illegal organization alleged to be the urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, itself listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.

DTK supports

Meanwhile, the Democratic Society Congress, or DTK, an umbrella organization of Kurdish groups, announced their support for the BDP’s decision to return to Parliament.

During the opening parliamentary session on Saturday, Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek will invite BDP deputies to take the parliamentary oath. Following their swearing-in ceremony, President Abdullah Gül will address the legislature, whose makeup represents 95 percent of the Turkish electorate.

September 28, 2011
SOURCE: Hürriyet Daily News