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news
headlines
Kurds aiming for final agreement next week Ecevit says Turkey prepares its defenses Trouble brews between Kurds/Islamic rebels in Iraq KDP and PUK Set to Seal Agreement on Implementing Four-Year-Old Peace Deal Kurds tell of Iraqi war ignored by outside world Iraq's Kurds Fear Results of U.S. Attack on Saddam Former US diplomat visits Iraqi Kurdistan Turkey's Kurdish party sees no ban before polls Al-Qaeda Surrogate Islamic Group in Southern Kurdistan Destroys Sufi Shrines Two Kurdish guerrillas killed in Southern Kurdistan Police Smash Immigrant Smuggling Ring Washington will not lay the groundwork for a "provisional government" Iraqi Kurds Fear Islamic Militant Group Attack by Islamist Radicals in Kurdistan Brings Kurdish Factions Closer Sweden Arrests Kurd in Immigrant "Honor Killing" Turkey set for November polls, EU reforms in doubt
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HADEP party
says will not stand in elections
ANKARA, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Turkey's main legal Kurdish party will not stand in November elections but will campaign under a new banner alongside other leftists, its leader said on Thursday, apparently trying to sidestep a possible ban. The European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, has closely watched the Constitutional Court case against the People's Democracy Party (HADEP). The party is charged with maintaining ties with armed separatists who waged a fight for a Kurdish homeland in the southeast that has killed 30,000 people since 1984. HADEP denies any links with the guerrillas. "We are pulling out of elections. We are leaving our candidates free...to join a different political party," HADEP chairman Murat Bozlak told Reuters. "If the Constitutional Court makes a negative decision...we will have taken away the voting rights of millions of people." Turkey was forced to call snap polls last month after infighting nearly wrecked the three-party governing coalition. Bozlak said his party would instead campaign under the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), a small party formed in 1997 that largely mirrors HADEP's platform of greater cultural rights for the country's large Kurdish minority. Nearly 20 senior HADEP officials resigned on Thursday to join DEHAP. HADEP saw its support rise to 5.8 percent of the vote in a Deutsche Bank survey released this week, short of the 10 percent threshold a party must cross to enter parliament. But its popularity could climb as it builds a bloc with other left-wing parties. Two tiny leftist parties, the Party of Labour (EMEP) and the Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) said on Thursday they would join forces with DEHAP in the election. Turkey bars political parties from setting up along ethnic or religious lines and has shut down more than 20 parties since the 1960s. Parliament amended the constitution last year to limit the grounds for party closures. HADEP's legal case is the first test of that amendment, as candidate Turkey tries to move closer to EU standards. Ankara has also moved in recent weeks to expand Kurdish-language rights, among other rights.
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