Turkish government submits "democratic move" motion to parliament

The motion, signed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, foresees a general debate on all aspects of the "democratic initiative" process.

"The government has launched a 'national unity and brotherhood project', publicly known as the 'democratic move' in order to raise democratic standards and find a lasting solution to terror problem that cost many years, harmed unity and solidarity of the country," the motion said.

The motion said that an appropriate ground to solve the terror problem had emerged, and a genuine and permanent solution should be found to the problem.

All political party leaders, particularly Mr. President, non-governmental organizations and citizens had assumed a positive approach to the process of solving the terror problem, the motion said.

It also said that democratic initiatives had been launched to end the ongoing terror problem, strengthen unity and solidarity in Turkey, and take new steps in fundamental rights and freedoms.

"All steps, taken and to be taken within the scope of the democratic move, aim at improving peace and confidence, brotherhood and solidarity and unity and solidarity, and co-existence in our country, and most importantly leave this will to upcoming generations," the motion said.

The motion said the most important part of the democratic move was to ensure democratization and human rights in the highest level, and implement individual and cultural rights in the most comprehensive way so that it would cover all citizens.

It also said that the democratization initiatives were carried out as a state policy.

"All dimensions of the problem, including political, economic, social, cultural, security and international relations, are taken into consideration in the democratization initiatives," the motion said.

It said that the final decision and solution address of the problem was the Turkish parliament, and asked the parliament to hold a general debate on the "democratic move" process in the following week.

On Monday, Turkish State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek said after the cabinet meeting that the government was planning to bring up the democratic initiative to the parliament on November 10.

On July 22, Erdoğan announced his government initiated a move to deal with Kurdish issue and the Ministry of Interior was assigned with the coordination of this task.

A week later, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said their government believed the Kurdish issue would be solved with an egalitarian approach through democratization.

Also, on October 9, Erdoğan said that he wanted to set a date for debating the government's "democratic move" after he got a response to his letter to the opposition party leader.

Deniz Baykal, the chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), sent a response letter to Erdoğan on October 12 in which he expressed his pleasure to host Erdoğan in the CHP headquarters to discuss the democratic move.