New pro-Kurd party in Turkey elects leader

02/02/2010

ANKARA, Turkey -- The new pro-Kurd Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) held its first congress Monday (February 1st), electing Selahattin Demirtas as its leader. Demirtas, 37, and Gulten Kisanak, elected as the party's co-chairperson, were lawmakers representing the Democratic Society Party (DTP), until it was banned by the Constitutional Court in December over alleged ties to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party. After suggesting they would stage a boycott, the ex-DTP deputies eventually decided to join the BDP. Former DTP leader Ahmet Turk and former DTP deputy Aysel Tugluk -- who along with 35 other politicians, have been banned from political activity for five years -- attended Monday's congress. (Zaman - 02/02/10; AP, Anadolu news agency - 01/02/10)

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