Chp to call into question pro kurdish bdp’s status in socialist international

1. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) is preparing to propose to the Socialist International (SI) that
political parties involved in the organization be required to keep their distance from terrorist
organizations, a policy that if adopted would call into question the observer status of the pro-Kurdish
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which is closely linked with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK).
“We may bring up th e issue at the presidium
meeting of the Socialist International, which is to take place in New York on Sept. 23,” CHP Deputy
Chairman Faruk Loğoğlu has said. According to Loğoğlu, all political parties in SI should take a stand
against terrorism and declare this stance to SI.
This proposal by the CHP, whose leader was elected a deputy chairman of the SI at the organization’s
most recent congress, held in South Africa at the end of August, is sure to make the BDP
uncomfortable, given that BDP deputies have never tried to conceal the fact that their party’s political
attitude is planned in coordination with the PKK.
The BDP has never described itself as completely separate from the PKK, and BDP deputies have
generally made clear, through public statements, that they are on the side of the PKK. A very recent
and striking example of this attitude was seen in a video of several BDP deputies embracing PKK
terrorists after having a lively chat with them along a main road in the province of Hakkari, where the
10 BDP representatives, accompanied by reporters and locals, supposedly met the five PKK terrorists
by chance.
It is difficult to explain the BDP’s status as an observer in the SI, considering the values the SI claims
to embrace. On the Web page of the SI, in Article 12 under the section titled Principles, it is declared
that “democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity.
Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world … with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic
framework of society.” Under the section titled Peace, in Articles 28 and 33, respectively, the SI also
declares that “peace is the precondition of all our hopes” and “peace is equally a necessity within
nations. Violent ways of handling conflicts destroy opportunities for development and human rights.”
While the SI praises democracy and peace in its principles, a political party such as the BDP can find
itself a place in the ranks of the SI. It is clear the activities of the PKK, of which the BDP always
speaks in favor, stand in sharp contrast to the values quoted above. Apart from attacking military posts
in the southeastern region of Turkey, the PKK has killed civilians in bomb attacks, kidnapped local
politicians and even recently abducted a CHP deputy in Tunceli, which was interpreted by some
analysts as an act aimed at intimidating the Alevi electorate who voted for the CHP in the province,
where the BDP failed to see its candidates become deputies in the national elections last year.
For Erol Tuncer, president of the Ankara-based Social Democracy Association, it’s inexplicable in
terms of social democracy values for a party like the BDP to be accepted into the SI. “In my opinion,
political parties which fail to keep a distance from, and which are so closely associated with, terrorist
organizations should have no place in the SI,” he told Sunday’s Zaman.

2. The BDP wanted its status to be elevated to that of a member from its current status as an observer
party at the Socialist International’s latest congress in Cape Town, but the demand was not put on the
agenda. “For the BDP to be accepted as a member political party of the Socialist International, it must
absolutely take a stance against terrorism. This is the CHP’s stance,” Loğoğlu, who represented the
CHP at the congress in Cape Town, told Sunday’s Zaman. Loğoğlu agreed with Tuncer in his views
regarding the BDP and added, “I believe the position of the BDP is in sharp contrast with the values
the SI represents.”
By all accounts, the BDP is a party which is unable to act outside the borders the PKK has outlined.
And that’s why the Turkish public sees the BDP as simply the political branch of the PKK. In the final
analysis, the BDP and the PKK are one in the same thing, people feel. It is this very sentiment Burhan
Kuzu, a deputy from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), expressed when he said recently,
“The BDP is no different from a terrorist organization.”
Tarhan Erdem, who was a long-time member of the CHP, believes the SI would take into account the
political program of the BDP, and not whether the BDP is closely associated with the PKK, when
admitting it as a full member. For Erdem, it’s essentially the political discourse of the BDP, which he
concedes is almost no different from that of a nationalist party, that would constitute an obstacle to the
party’s admission as a full-fledged member of the SI. “The BDP, as it is, has no chance of obtaining
full membership status in the SI,” Erdem commented to Sunday’s Zaman
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