ANKARA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of supporters of Turkey's main Kurdish party
gathered for a congress on Sunday, confident that steps towards EU membership will help
see off the threat of a party ban for alleged ties to armed rebels.

Delegates at the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) congress said Turkey's faltering
progress toward European Union membership would preclude a closure, sure to be met with
disapproval by the bloc.

"With the integration process into the EU...we are not expecting the Turkish authorities to
close us. But this is the fourth party we've had and we're used to being closed down,"
Sunullah Altan, a party official from Istanbul, told Reuters.

Turkey's establishment and the powerful armed forces see HADEP as little more than a
political extension of armed separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). More
than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, have been killed in 16 years of fighting between
Turkish forces and the PKK.

The courts have closed three previous HADEP incarnations and the constitutional court is
slowly weighing a new case to close the latest grouping on charges of links to the PKK.

HADEP officials deny any ties to the rebels and were quick to hush small groups of
delegates who chanted pro-PKK slogans.

German European Parliamentarian Feleknaz Uca began addressing the congress in Kurdish
but stopped after HADEP officials intervened. Turkey outlaws parties based on ethnicity.

HADEP seeks an end to curbs on Kurdish language broadcasting and education. It controls
many cities in the mainly Kurdish southeast but has no seats in parliament.

Police armoured cars kept watch near the congress and around 100 HADEP officials were
arrested earlier this week, but delegates said the atmosphere was easier than in previous
years.

Adding to party optimism is a tentative peace in the conflict-ravaged southeast. The PKK
says it has abandoned the armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule on orders leader Abdullah
Ocalan issued from his Turkish prison.

Ocalan has been sentenced to death for treason and has appealed to a European Court
against the verdict.

Outgoing HADEP leader Ahmet Turan Demir drew cheers when he made indirect reference
to Ocalan in a call for the abolition of the death penalty, a step Turkey must take for EU
membership.

"The death penalty should be abolished from the law without any discrimination based on
individuals," he said.

Demir will be replaced as leader by Murat Bozlak, who was standing unopposed for the post
he vacated in 1999 to serve a jail sentence for separatism.
*******************
The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

Click Back In Your Browser To Return To News Headlines