Turkish military disagrees with criticism over village guard system
Hurriyet Daily News with wires
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Segregation nixed as response to violence
The system, established in 1985 to protect villages against attacks from the terror organization PKK, came under the spotlight in
Ten suspects, some of whom were members of state-supported "village guard" units, were detained after the assault, which left 44 dead including the bride, the groom, his parents and 4-year-old sister, as well as three pregnant women. "The incident in the Bilge village of Mardin province is just violence, and it cannot be explained with any humanitarian value," an army spokesman said during a weekly press briefing in Ankara. "But we consider the efforts to depict the village guards responsible for this incident as an institution biased and wrong," Metin Gurak was quoted by agencies as saying. The authorities were also investigating several state-issued village guard guns, and two unlicensed weapons that were allegedly used in the assault. The leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, Ahmet Turk, criticized the village guard system Thursday, saying "this violence would never have happened had the state not issued guns to them." Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek has said the system could be revised or abolished, adding that more than 50,000 village guards operate in the region and all of them should not be categorized in the same way. Turkish President Abdullah Gul has also said the system could be reviewed if there are flaws and insufficiencies found.