Presenting democratization package as PKK’s success is tactless: Deputy PM

BURSA – Anadolu Agency

DAILY NEWS Photo / Selahattin Sönmez

Presenting the democratization package as a “success” for the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party’s (PKK) is tactless, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has said.

“We know what we are doing. The package we have prepared has nothing to do with the PKK, with İmralı, not even with the peace process, and not with the current situation. It is tactless to present this package as a success of PKK, with such merciless and shameless expressions,” said Arınç, speaking at a press conference in the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Bursa provincial office.

At the same press conference, he also said the AKP’s internal “three term” limit rule would be implemented and that there were no moves to change the rule. The AKP’s statute states that a member can only be elected three consecutive times as a deputy from the party. This rule will affect 73 AKP deputies, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leading to questions as to what Erdoğan will do in the 2015 general elections.

Commenting on headscarves in public services, Arınç said a change in legislation was not necessary as the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who had been against the wearing of headscarves, had changed its state of mind.

“The CHP had said it would always oppose it and that secularism would be harmed by it, and had brought the constitutional change that was approved by 411 deputies in 2008 to the Constitutional Court. But if it has left its old days behind and come to the point of thinking, ‘why not?’ then believe me there is no a need to make any amendments,” said Arınç.