23.07.2008

Newly elected Democratic Society Party (DTP) Chairman Ahmet Türk criticized the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) for its stance over the Ergenekon investigation, at a meeting of the DTP parliamentary group yesterday.

Türk said the Ergenekon gang worked against democracy and national sovereignty. "Didn't we take an oath here in Parliament to defend the principle that sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation?" he said. Türk said he knew CHP leader Deniz Baykal very well and that Baykal tended to avoid discussion of delicate matters yet defended Ergenekon.

Türk also pointed out that when one retired general was taken into custody in connection with the Ergenekon case, he placed a phone call to a CHP deputy.

"This attitude brings the question to people's minds of whether they [the CHP] are linked with it [Ergenekon]," Türk said.

He also said the DTP's issue was not necessarily related to punishing the members of the Ergenekon gang, but to finding out the truth behind its activities.

"Turks can realize the suffering of Kurds and rethink [the situation]. This is what we want," he said, saying that downplaying the Ergenekon investigation's importance was the biggest threat to democracy.

"If the Ergenekon investigation is diluted, if it is abandoned without [obtaining a] result, it will become very dangerous, like a snake whose tail is stepped on," he said.

The DTP leader said efforts by politicians and other figures to "dilute" the Ergenekon investigation harmed democracy, saying that those who criticized the investigation by citing a lack of sufficient evidence were simply incorrect.

"The public prosecutors [on the Ergenekon case] know, of course, what happened to the prosecutor of the Şemdinli case. If they did not have strong evidence, would they enter such a dead-end?" Türk questioned.

On Nov. 9, 2005, a bookstore in the southeastern township of Şemdinli was bombed. Two noncommissioned officers and an ex-PKK informant were caught trying to escape. The prosecutor on the case, Ferhat Sarıkaya, asserted in his final indictment that the soldiers were part of a network with links that could be traced back to Land Forces Commander Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt, who has since been promoted to chief of general staff. Sarıkaya was taken off the case and then disbarred by the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors. The three suspects were first tried at a civil court and sentenced to nearly 40 years each -- a punishment annulled by the Supreme Court of Appeals, which ruled a mistrial. The three suspects are now being tried by a military court in a completely new trial.

Türk also mentioned the closure case pending against his own party, saying that it would not be a solution to any of the nation's problems.

"In the past when they closed our party, we had only one woman deputy, Leyla Zana, but we have eight now," he said. Türk said that Parliament was the place for coming up with solutions and that this is why the DTP was there and trying to introduce new parties. But the party was excluded from the start by the other parties in Parliament, he said, adding: "Yet it is not too late. We have to produce projects that will serve the normalization of Turkey," he said.

Türk said in regard to the case against the DTP that the party's administration was waiting respectfully for the conclusion of the legal process at the Constitutional Court.

"The Constitutional Court is neither a criminal court nor a court of arbitration. It has to rule in accordance with the requirements of the day and in the interest of society," he said.