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Ahmet Türk: Attack on me an attempt to sustain Ergenekon
Türk, in an interview with the weekly newsmagazine Aksiyon, assessed the motives behind an incident in which he was punched in the face while leaving a courthouse in the northern province of Samsun after attending a hearing on April 13. He said the attack on him and a similar attack on Energy Minister Taner Yıldız were to reinforce the shadowy, pro-status quo circles that are highly discomfited by the changes in Turkey.
“These are, of course, provocations aimed at derailing Turkey’s road of change and transformation and at sustaining the pro-status quo Ergenekon mentality by antagonizing people,” he said in the interview.
The government came up with the democratic initiative last year with the primary goal of consolidating Turkish democracy while expanding freedoms and respect for human rights in the country. The initiative is also aimed at resolving the long-neglected Kurdish issue in the European Union-candidate country. “It was an attack to destroy friendship between the Turks and the Kurds in the fight for democracy and peace,” the former politician said.
He further argued that despite the large number of arrests so far, the force behind the Ergenekon terrorist organization was still alive and hard at work. “Certain people were imprisoned but the force behind them has not been discovered. That force is sending the message that it exists with these provocations. We have been trying to explain Ergenekon for years, only now has it been revealed,” the former DTP leader noted.
Türk also discussed the reasons for the DTP-successor Peace and Democracy Party’s (BDP) rejection of the government-proposed constitutional reform package. He said they were uncomfortable being in the same position as the other opposition parties, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), against the package, which polls show a majority of people in Turkey favor.
“We are really inconvenienced by being aligned with CHP and MHP in the voting. We are making calculations on it, too. However, we are at this point staying our course because serious steps for democracy and peace have not been taken. Of course, we feel the pain [of our stance against the changes] here, and we cannot explain this to our people,” he noted.
The government’s 30-article constitutional amendment package is mainly aimed at bringing civil-military relations and the judiciary in the country up to European standards. The package also makes the closure of political parties harder and dependent on the approval of a parliamentary commission. Every political party will have equal representation in that commission, independent of its size, if the proposed change is enacted.
The Constitutional Court closed the DTP on Dec. 11, 2009, with a unanimous decision that “it was understood that the party has become a focal point of separatist activities” and also banned several of its deputies, including Türk, from politics for five years.
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