[Event of the week]
Constitutional Court bans DTP in wake of PKK strike claiming 7

 The Constitutional Court voted unanimously to ban the DTP after it found the party guilty of cooperating with the PKK. “The DTP’s closure was decided because of its connections to the terror organization and because it became a focal point of activities against the country’s integrity,” Constitutional Court President Haşım Kılıç said as he announced the verdict.

The court ruling will raise political tensions and have repercussions in the Turkish financial markets when they reopen, analysts said. The ruling also imposes a five-year ban from politics on 37 members of the DTP. “Turkey cannot solve its problems by closing down parties,” DTP Chairman Ahmet Türk told reporters. “As long as our goal is a solution to the Kurdish problem, it doesn’t matter who is banned from politics or not, because our determination to find a solution continues,” he said.

Türk also said all 21 DTP deputies in Turkey’s 544-seat Parliament would resign if the party is banned, which would trigger a by-election in Kurdish districts. Several pro-Kurdish parties have been banned in the past.

The closure came days after a terrorist attack in Reşadiye on Monday, which claimed the lives of seven soldiers and injured three others, plunging the nation into grief and disappointment.

The attack occurred as PKK terrorists opened fire on soldiers patrolling a rural area in the district and came at a critical point as the Constitutional Court was preparing to hear the closure case against the DTP.

On Thursday, the Fırat news agency announced that the attack in Reşadiye was carried out by a unit of the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), the armed wing of the PKK, but without an order from the forces or the PKK. The agency reported that the assault was not the result of a directive from the HPG command.

“When [jailed PKK leader Abdullah] Öcalan is in question, each unit has the right to carry out acts on its own initiative,” the terrorist group reportedly announced. The HPG also said the assault was retaliation against Turkish security forces due to recent military operations against the terrorist organization.

The timing of the attack, which came as the government was working on a democratization initiative to resolve Turkey’s Kurdish problem, caused many to think that it was an attempt to block the peace process. “This treacherous ambush is an open indication of the kind of provocation our country is faced with due to the time and place at which it occurred. Those behind this attack will be called to account in the harshest sense.

 Three retired high-ranking officers whose names were frequently mentioned in an admiral’s journal detailing plans to stage a coup d’état against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government testified to civilian prosecutors, something which observers believe will be seen as a milestone in Turkish democracy as no high-profile member of the military had ever been interrogated over his role in anti-democratic plans before. Prosecutors conducting an investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine network charged with plotting to overthrow the government, called former Land Forces Commander Gen. Aytaç Yalman, former Air Forces Commander Gen. İbrahim Fırtına and former Naval Forces Commander Adm. Özden Örnek, all of whom retired in 2004, to testify as part of the ongoing probe.

 Dec. 6 Sunday

 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed his unwillingness to send combat troops to Afghanistan in the wake of US President Barack Obama’s call for NATO allies to beef up troop numbers. The prime minister was, however, willing to consider training the Afghan army. “We can open a center for training Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan. We can train one Afghan battalion in Turkey and another in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan calls for training its police officers, our police departments are ready,” Erdoğan stated. His remarks came during a question and answer session with Turkish journalists during his flight to the US.

Prime Minister Erdoğan reiterated his party’s intention to continue plans for the settlement of the decades-old Kurdish question through a massive democratization package despite the efforts of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) to derail the peace project, as DTP supporters held violent rallies across southeastern Anatolia. “Everybody is laying their cards on the table for the national unity and brotherhood project. We are all witnessing this. This is a state project, and its interlocutors are the 72 million citizens of Turkey. What we are expecting is for everyone to lend their support to the project,” the prime minister stated.

 Dec. 7 Monday

 Serap Eser, 17, who was injured in early November by a Molotov cocktail attack on a municipal bus in İstanbul, died at the hospital where she had been receiving treatment since the attack.

Seven soldiers were killed in the central province of Tokat’s Reşadiye district after Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists opened fire on soldiers patrolling a rural area in the district. At least three other soldiers were wounded in the attack.

The Health Ministry announced that the number of deaths caused by the H1N1 virus, popularly known as swine flu, had risen from 241 to 296 in three days across Turkey.

Amid growing speculation that NATO member Turkey is turning away from the West, the US administration clearly voiced its appreciation for the role played by Turkey in contributing to the maintenance of global peace. During a meeting at the White House, Prime Minister Erdoğan and US President Obama reaffirmed that defending each other is an obligation for the two NATO allies.

 Dec. 8 Tuesday

The Constitutional Court, which ruled in favor of closing several pro-Kurdish parties in the past, began hearing a case against the DTP on charges that it has ties to the outlawed PKK.

The industrial production index climbed by 6.5 percent in October compared to the same month of the previous year and 13.7 percent over the previous month to reach 117.9, marking an increase for the first time since it started to freefall in August 2008, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) announced.

 Dec. 9 Wednesday

Prime Minister Erdoğan voiced strong determination to complete a democratization package the AK Party government has been working on since summer, despite interference by individuals and groups, in the wake of a bloody attack against Turkish security forces that left seven soldiers dead on Monday. “Turkey has to successfully complete the [democratization] process. We believe in this. My party and government are determined to finalize this process with courage. We are working on our path despite all provocations. It is an obligation for Turkey to finalize this process,” Erdoğan stated during a speech he delivered in the US.

The Turkish Parliament granted the Parliament Award of Honor to Professor Kemal Karpat, a renowned Turkish historian, in an award ceremony in Parliament.

Three people received fines of TL 30,000 each for poisoning 50 stray dogs on Avşa Island, part of Balıkesir province and located in the Marmara Sea. The penalty is a first in terms of its size, and animal rights activists say the decision is likely to deter municipalities and other individuals from poisoning stray dogs, which is currently accepted as only an “administrative” crime.

 Dec. 10 Thursday

The world celebrated Human Rights Day, which marks the anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Leaders and politicians released various messages to mark the day. Turkey, however, is still a land of serious human rights violations, from torture at the hands of the police to unsolved murders, according to human rights groups.

Military operations against the separatist PKK left nine terrorist operatives dead, with another four people deserting the group. According to the Anatolia news agency, operations by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the Iranian military in Mardin, Hakkari and along the Turkey-Iraq-Iran border against the PKK led to serious losses for the terrorist organization.

The Fırat news agency announced that an attack in the Reşadiye district of central Tokat on Monday that left seven soldiers dead was carried out by a unit from the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), the armed wing of the PKK, but not on the orders of the HPG or the PKK.

The Council of State Administrative Trials Board rejected a petition by the Higher Education Board (YÖK) to appeal a recent decision by the Council of State against the abolishment of the coefficient system for Turkey’s university admission exam.

Turkish health officials reported that the number of people who died from the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, reached 353 nationwide.

Turkey’s ambassador in Washington shocked political observers by resigning from his post, apparently after a dispute over protocol with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during Prime Minister Erdoğan’s high-profile White House talks. The Foreign Ministry offered no explanation as to why Ambassador Nabi Şensoy resigned, in a statement released late on Wednesday, but sources told Today’s Zaman that the career diplomat had asked the ministry to reassign him to Ankara after a row with Davutoğlu over the minister’s presence at one-on-one talks between Prime Minister Erdoğan and US President Obama at the White House on Monday.

The government regards the fight against discrimination facing the country’s Roma community to be a moral duty, State Minister Faruk Çelik, who spoke at a workshop organized by the government to address issues facing the Roma, said.

 Dec. 11 Friday

Despite the PKK claiming responsibility for a terrorist attack in the city of Tokat that left seven soldiers dead earlier this week, the prime minister expressed doubts, saying there might be other unseen groups and masterminds behind the attack who wish to undermine the government’s Kurdish initiative, a plan that seeks to end separatist terror by broadening the rights of the country’s Kurds. Speaking to journalists on a flight to Turkey from Mexico, where he visited Mexican officials, Prime Minister Erdoğan said investigators were still looking into the details of the Tokat attack. “It is not right to take it as a fact that the PKK did it just because it claimed responsibility. True, this or that branch of the terrorist organization might have been behind it. But is this the truth of it?”

An explosion in a coal mine in northwest Turkey killed 19 workers, Turkish Labor Minister Ömer Dinçer announced. The explosion, believed to have been caused by methane gas, took place in a mine close to the city of Bursa, trapping the workers underground on Thursday evening.