Turkey ready for Kurdish tug-of-war

Published: August 4, 2007, 9:49 am

Turkey ready for Kurdish tug-of-warAs the new Turkish parliament gets ready to convene on Saturday, rising tensions about Kurdish activities in northern Iraq will be high on the agenda as 22 members of the pro-Kurdish DTP sit around the table.By Yigal Schleifer for EurasiaNet (03/08/07)Amidst rising tensions about Kurdish activities in northern Iraq, the new Turkish parliament, which will convene for the first time on 4 August, will offer a sharp - if not potentially combustible - study in contrasts.In one section will be the 22 members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), among them a lawyer who once represented jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, one of the most reviled figures in Turkey.Meanwhile, not far from the DTP parliamentarians will be sitting the 70 members of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP), a hardline group that openly declared during the recent election campaign that, upon election, it would bring back capital punishment and hang

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