We want a brand new charter, says BDP

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Saz virtuoso Arif Sağ (R) also took part of the event organized in Ankara May 25. AA photo

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) called for a brand new Constitution May 25, respecting all ethnicities, faiths and the diversity of the country during a special event organized in Ankara, with the support of many writers and intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and Rakel Dink, the wife of the slain Turkish journalist or Armenian origin Hrant Dink.

"We have had enough of the fixed-up, patched Constitutions. This is now a social demand that cannot be delayed, evaded or extended over a period of time. It has to be done now, but it also has to defend freedoms, pluralism and each and everyone's rights. It should be a problem-solving Constitution, not a problem-causing one," BDP co-chair Gülşen Kışanak said during the two-day event titled "Democracy and Peace Conference" designed to support the ongoing peace process.

Kışanak said the process had entered a critical stage with the withdrawal of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants and has reached a point of no return. "We believe that we will embrace together this solution path and block any attempt to step back [from the process]."

'Peace against alienation'

Famed writer Murathan Mungan said peace should not only be reached on the terrorism issue, but in every aspect of social life that creates alienation. Mungan also noted that the centenary of the massive massacre of Armenians, which Turkey denies was genocide, was approaching. "Every person who writes or speaks publicly is indebted to [the Armenians] who lost their lives in 1915," Mungan said, urging for an end to denial.

Pamuk, Dink and the virtuoso novelists Yaşar Kemal and Vedat Türkali sent messages that were read during the event.