Commission dealing with different citizenship views

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

No full agreement has been secured on the new charter’s citizenship article. DAILY NEWS photo

Parliament’s Constitution Conciliation Commission has been unable to draft the related article on the definition of citizenship for over two months, with all four political parties insisting on their own proposal for the definition. As full agreement could not yet be secured on the citizenship article - like almost 40 other articles discussed as part of the “fundamental rights and freedoms” chapter – the article was eventually written with red lines, reservations, and parentheses from all four parties.

The four parties have not yet been able to narrow their differences on the issue. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) proposes “neutral citizenship,” the CHP proposes “Turkish citizenship,” the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) proposes “citizenship with Turkish definition,” while the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) wants “constitutional citizenship.”

The proposals of the four parties are as follows:

AKP: “Everybody who is bound by the state by the bind of citizenship is a citizen of the Republic of Turkey. The child of a mother or father who is the citizen of the Republic of Turkey has citizenship from birth. Citizenship is gained through the fulfilling of conditions cited by the law and is only lost in situations cited by the law.”

CHP: “For everybody, Turkish citizenship means being a citizen of the Republic of Turkey on the basis of equality regardless of language, religion, gender, ethnic origin, or similar reasons.”

MHP: “Everybody bound by the Turkish state by the bind of citizenship is Turkish. The child of a Turkish father or a Turkish mother is a Turk. Citizenship is a fundamental right.”

BDP: “In gaining, using and losing citizenship of Turkey; language, religion, race, ethnic origin, culture, gender, sexual orientation and similar differences cannot be taken into consideration.”