TURKEY: Turkey's highest court considers ruling party shutdown against background of rising tension following Istanbul bomb attacks

Record ID: 357074

  • Title: TURKEY: Turkey's highest court considers ruling party shutdown against background of rising tension following Istanbul bomb attacks
  • Date: 29th July 2008
  • Summary: (W3) ISTANBUL, TURKEY (JULY 28, 2008) (REUTERS) WOMAN PLACING A TURKISH FLAG ON WINDOW NEAR SITE WHERE EXPLOSION HAPPENED VARIOUS OF TURKISH FLAGS ON APARTMENT WINDOWS PRIME MINISTER TAYYIP ERDOGAN VISITING THE SCENE OF THE EXPLOSION MAN LOOKING AT ERDOGAN FROM WINDOW ERDOGAN WALKING BY BLAST SCENE PEOPLE CHANTING "Martyrs won't die, the land will not be separated." ERD
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA67ZQ7GNUKDHAZ5QR2JQK3UC86
  • Story Text: Turkey's highest court begins considering whether to shut down the governing AK Party for Islamist activities against a background of tension following two bomb attacks in Istanbul over the weekend. Prime Minister Erdogan calls for unity and attends the funeral of 10 of the blast victims.
    Turkey's highest court began considering on Monday (July 28) whether to shut down the governing AK Party for Islamist activities against a background of tension following two bomb attacks in Istanbul over the weekend.
    The blasts killed 17 people and wounded more than 150 on Sunday (July 27), hours before the Constitutional Court was set to look at the case. Five of the dead were children, Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said.

    "Today is a day for unity," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told residents at the site of the blasts in a working-class neighbourhood on the European side of Istanbul, adding that his government will continue to fight terrorism.
    The AK Party is hugely popular in the relatively conservative area and Erdogan received a warm welcome from residents. Supporters hung Turkish flags on the windows of their apartments and chanted and clapped as Erdogan walked through the streets talking to residents near the blast scene.
    In the emotionally charged aftermath of the bombings in Ankara, the Constitutional Court began examining whether Erdogan's AK Party had engaged in Islamist activities and should be closed. The party denies the charges and a ruling is expected in early August.
    The court case is linked to a long-running power struggle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which are at odds over the direction of the officially secular but predominantly Muslim country.
    No one has claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks, the deadliest in Turkey since 2003. But police were increasingly looking at the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

    "Martyrs won't die, the land will not be separated," Erdogan supporters chanted as he walked by the site of the blasts.
    Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said in a statement: "The attacks, which were staged in a crowded street at a busy hour and without discriminating between men and women, young, old and children, showed once again the gory face, ruthlessness and despair of terrorism."
    Governor Guler said there were signs of links to the PKK separatist group but pro-PKK websites reported it as condemning the attacks and denying any involvement.

    "Our airforce is going into the headquarters of this terror group in Northern Iraq, our land forces are carrying out operations cave by cave," Erdogan said.
    Later 5,000 mourners, including Erdogan and several ministers, attended a funeral for 10 of the blast victims.
    Kurdish separatists, far-left groups and Islamist militants have all carried out bombings in Istanbul in the past.
    The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union (EU), has waged a campaign for a Kurdish homeland in south-east Turkey since 1984. But it usually does not target civilians.
    Officials said a first blast brought people into the streets and a larger bomb hidden in a rubbish bin exploded 10 minutes later just 50 metres away.
    The Istanbul attacks followed the bombing by Turkish jets of suspected PKK positions in Northern Iraq, used by guerrillas as a base from which to carry out strikes on Turkish territory.
    Turkey's military said on Sunday (July 27) its fighter jets hit 12 Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq's Qandil region in an operation that started at midnight.
    The army general staff said in a statement on its website that all the planes had returned safely to their bases and that it was working to confirm "terrorist casualties."
    Financial markets in a country seeking European Union membership weakened slightly on the news of the Istanbul blasts as well as on concerns over the court case against the AK Party but later recovered.

    "With 47 percent of the vote the (AK Party) government cannot be easily closed down," said Huseyin Bagci, a politics professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University.

    "The government is also realising that they made some strategic mistakes, so now the question is how to retreat from this situation to a normal democratic life," he added.
    The divisions grew in January when the government moved to lift a ban on university students wearing Islamic headscarves. The Constitutional Court annulled that reform in June.
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