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Turkey's top court bans pro-Kurdish party
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Turkey's top court bans pro-Kurdish party
Pinar Aydinli
ANKARA
Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:36pm EST
Factbox
Turkey's history of banning parties
2:12pm EST
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's top court closed the only pro-Kurdish party in parliament on Friday for having links to PKK Kurdish rebels in a ruling that could deal a fresh blow to the country's faltering bid to join the European Union.
World | Turkey
The EU had warned that banning the party would violate Kurdish rights and the judicial move could also set back the Turkish government's drive to end decades of conflict with militant Kurdish separatists.
The Constitutional Court voted unanimously to ban the Democratic Society Party (DTP) after finding the party guilty of cooperating with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) separatist guerrilla group.
"The DTP's closure was decided due to its connections with the terror organization and because it became a focal point of the activities against the country's integrity," Constitutional Court Chairman Hasim Kilic said in announcing the verdict.
The court ruling will raise political tensions and could hit sentiment in Turkish financial markets when they reopen, analysts said.
"The news of the closure is likely to hurt Turkey's political landscape for the short term," Mehmet Ilgen from ATA Invest said.
"Implications of the closure on Turkish assets will be negative for short term due to possible increase in political risk premium."
The decision was announced after markets had closed, but the lira currency weakened and bond yields rose in after-hours trade.
With EU membership in mind, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party took a political gamble when he launched reforms to improve Kurds' cultural rights with the hope of ending a conflict that has cost more than 40,000 lives.
In courting Kurdish support, Erdogan weathered hostility from a conservative establishment that includes the judiciary, which historically regards Kurdish aspirations for more autonomy as a threat to the state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
FIVE-YEAR BAN
The ruling imposes a five-year ban from politics on 37 members of the DTP, which is the only Kurdish party in parliament and controls about 100 municipalities in the southeast.
"Turkey cannot solve its problems by closing down parties," DTP Chairman Ahmet Turk told reporters.
"As long as our goal is a solution to the Kurdish problem it doesn't matter who is banned or not from politics, because our determination to find a solution continues," he said.
Turk also said all 21 DTP deputies in Turkey's 544-seat parliament would resign if the party is banned, which could trigger a by-election in Kurdish districts.
Turkey has a long history of banning or ousting by military coups political parties deemed a threat to national security, including Islamists and Kurdish groups.
Analysts say the ban could strengthen the PKK's hand by undermining confidence in the democratic process and the government's Kurdish reform, aimed at reconciling the state with minority Kurds who make up around 20 percent of the population.
The United States has supported the reforms as a way to bring stability to neighboring Iraq.
Wolfango Piccoli, analyst at Eurasia, said the ruling would stoke ethnic tensions and hit support for the AK Party among Kurds and nationalists ahead of a general vote set for 2011. The government is trying to steer the economy back from recession.
Residents in Diyarbakir, the main city in the mainly Kurdish southeast and which has witnessed scenes of violence ahead of the verdict, voiced their disenchantment.
"We think that to ban our political party which came to a certain level with our votes is an attack on democracy," said Orhan Altun, a young Kurd in his 20s, said while watching the televised announcement of the verdict in a cafe in Diyarbakir.
Many non-Kurds were unsympathetic.
"I think this an appropriate decision. What can I say?" Ali Kaya, a Turk in his late forties, said as he waited for a bus in rainy Istanbul. "They did their best to split our country."
The PKK has fought for 25 years for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey. Turkey's Kurdish population, whose language was outlawed for years, has long complained of discrimination.
(Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Michael Roddy)
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