DIYARBAKIR, (Northern Kurdistan), Sept 18 (AFP)  DEHAP, the sole pro-Kurdish party to field candidates in Turkey's upcoming general elections, has praised Ankara's recent pro-democracy reforms but fears they will be slow to take hold.

Officials of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) have been quick to praise the new laws adopted by parliament in August which allow, among other freedoms, for broadcasts and education in Kurdish, the language of Turkey's largest minority.

"These laws are truly a revolution," said Osman Baydemir, a DEHAP candidate in the November 3 general election.

Only last week, for example, a Turkish state security tribunal acquitted 28 Kurdish children who faced up to three years in jail for demanding education in their mother tongue prior to the parliamentary vote.

But "laws have little meaning without a change in mentality," he stressed, referring to long-standing opposition in Turkey to allowing Kurds any minority rights.

It is still forbidden, for example, to register one's child with a Kurdish name, he added.

And Turkish authorities recently banned the distribution of a new pro-Kurdish newspaper, Yeniden Ozgur Gundem, in two mainly Kurdish provinces under emergency rule, following its publication of writings by jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, whose Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) waged a 15-year war for Kurdish self-rule in the region.

Nationalists in Turkey have criticized the parliamentary reforms, saying they were imposed by the European Union to which Ankara is pandering in a bid to win membership.

Ankara has promised to move swiftly to implement the new laws.

Education Minister Necdet Tekin announced Wednesday they had completed legal preparations for the inauguration of courses in the Kurdish language, effectively giving them the official go-ahead.

"The enactment of the laws will be as important as their adoption," according to Ali Urkut, provincial DEHAP chairman in Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey.

"The region has really changed for the better since the last elections, but much remains to be done", he also added.

A rebellion led by the PKK which left some 36,000 dead has fizzled out since Ocalan was arrested and jailed in 1999.

Urkut fears however the atmosphere may sour again in the runup to the elections, especially in rural areas "where the military threaten villagers with the burning of their homes if they vote for the (pro-Kurdish) party".

DEHAP is now the only pro-Kurdish party to run in the election after HADEP, the People's Democracy Party, folded 10 days ago fearing it was about to be banned by the Turkish judiciary for alleged "links" with Kurdish rebels.

Now former HADEP members, along with representatives from two smaller left-wing parties, are throwing in their lot with DEHAP, a sister party set up in 1997.

In the last general elections in 1999, HADEP won a majority of votes in the Turkish southeast, but failed to win the necessary 10 percent of the vote nationwide to obtain any seats in parliament.

The party, however, won several major townships in the region.

"There's no need to fear us, we shall enter parliament to truly work for brotherhood between the Kurdish and Turkish people," according to Baydemir who feels confident DEHAP will this time win seats.
 

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