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Turkey: new troubles on eve of parliamentary election

Türkiye Materials 1 April 2015 22:30 (UTC +04:00)
The government and opposition in Turkey are actively preparing for the parliamentary election to be held in June 2015, with ultra-leftist forces keeping busy as well.
Turkey: new troubles on eve of parliamentary election

Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.1

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The government and opposition in Turkey are actively preparing for the parliamentary election to be held in June 2015, with ultra-leftist forces keeping busy as well.

The latest developments in the country prove this. Armed persons took the Prosecutor Selim Kiraz hostage in the Palace of Justice in Istanbul on March 31. The far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) demanded the arrest of the police officers responsible for the death of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan during the street protests in 2013. The leftists regard Elvan as a symbol in their fight against the authorities.

Kiraz was critically wounded by five bullets during an attempt to rescue him and later died in a hospital. Two of the hostage takers were also killed during the special operation.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) is responsible for terrorist acts committed in May 2013 in the city of Reyhanli in Turkey's Hatay province that left 46 people dead and 155 injured. The group members also committed acts of terror against the US embassy in Ankara. As a result of this attack, a security guard was killed and one person was injured.

Today, an unknown armed person broke into the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) office in the Kartal district of Istanbul. The gendarmerie forces managed to neutralize the attacker.

Following the incident, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was on a visit to Romania, cut his visit short and the justice minister vowed to track down the "dark forces".

Ultra-leftist forces have become active at the time when Turkish authorities are closer to the democratic settlement of the Kurdish problem and repeatedly said that Ankara intends to completely settle the Kurdish problem before the parliamentary election.

No matter how the authorities assess the current situation, the opposition (Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party) will by all means use these events to show the failure of policy pursued the ruling party.

Besides the opposition parties, there is also the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party that has repeatedly been accused by the Turkish authorities of inciting ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turks.

Previously, the party leader Salahaddin Demirtas called on Kurds to rise in mass protest actions by accusing the government of using the democratic settlement of the Kurdish problem only to garner votes in the parliamentary election.

Why does the Peoples' Democratic Party so fear the settlement of the Kurdish problem before the parliamentary election?

Although there is another pro-Kurdish party HUDAPAR in Turkey, it is the Peoples' Democratic Party that acts as mediator between the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and Turkish authorities, thereby strengthening its political influence among the country's Kurdish population.

The political bureau of the Peoples' Democratic Party well understands that following the settlement of the Kurdish problem, it will lose its raison d'être, since a significant part of Turkey's Kurdish population supports the Justice and Development Party, as well as HUDAPAR.

Moreover, one mustn't rule out that in the case of complete settlement of the Kurdish problem, the Peoples' Democratic Party will not be able to overcome the 10-percent barrier in the parliamentary election.

But these are not the only serious problems for the authorities on the eve of the parliamentary election. The Kurdish PKK has said that for present, it will not rush to lay down arms.

This suggests that some forces in Turkey and beyond it are not interested in the settlement of the Kurdish problem. And, taking this into account, we can predict serious troubles in Turkey before the parliamentary election and the country's authorities understand that.

Turkish prime minister recently remarked that some forces in the country want to plunge Turkey into chaos before the parliamentary election. These forces are attempting to bring more truth to these words.

Edited by CN
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Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu

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