Turkey's far-right party says it will leave government before accepting end to death penalty

Jun 7, 2002

By SUZAN FRASER, 

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's nationalist leader said Friday his party would withdraw from the government rather than compromise and allow the abolition of the death penalty and greater cultural rights for Kurds.

 Turkey is under pressure to abolish the death penalty and grant Kurds the right to broadcast and teach in Kurdish as part of reforms needed to join the European Union (news - web sites).

Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Action Party, has repeatedly called for the execution of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and has long opposed granting education and broadcast rights to Kurds fearing it would break up the country.

 Bahceli told reporters that his party would leave the government before supporting such changes. He also said his party would not agree to making concessions during talks to reunite Cyprus.

 "We ... do not have the ambition to remain in government," Bahceli said Friday after a meeting of Turkish leaders on the proposed EU reforms.

 He challenged other party leaders to either form a new government or reach an agreement and enact the measures without his party's support.

 "If (other parties) are capable of forming a government we are willing to make sacrifices," Bahceli said. "The new formation would have the necessary majority (to carry out reforms)."

 Bahceli's party is the second largest in parliament and is popular largely because of its demand that Ocalan be executed. If Bahceli's party withdraws from the government, the government would collapse and a new administration would have to be formed.

 Two pro-Islamic opposition parties, however, back the reforms. A new majority government could be formed with those parties, but the powerful military is likely to oppose any new government that includes the pro-Islamic parties.

 Bahceli's statement comes at a time when the future of the government is already blurry.

 Opposition parties and even some members of the ruling coalition have called on Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to resign after missing Friday's meeting due to ill health. It was the second key meeting on EU reforms which Ecevit missed this month.

 Ocalan, who led a 15-year war for Kurdish autonomy, which killed some 37,000 people, was sentenced to death in 1999. The European Court of Human Rights is expected to deliver a verdict on his appeal within months.

 Bahceli has hinted that Turkey might not abide by a European Court of Human Rights decision against hanging Ocalan.