Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke out on Monday against a court ban on a Kurdish party that caused angry protests and plunged the country into political uncertainty.
The court ruling drew criticism from the European Union, dealing a new blow to Turkey's faltering hopes of EU membership.
"Our position against the closure of the DTP is clear ... We are against the closure of parties. We think individuals should be punished, not a (party) identity," Erdoğan told parliament.
The leader of the banned Democratic Society
Party (DTP), closed after being found guilty of links to the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said former party members would resign
from parliament in protest.
This could open the way for by-elections, increasing political uncertainty ahead of national polls due in 2011.
In
Diyarbakır, the largest city in the primarily Kurdish southeast,
thousands of Kurds took to the streets, watched by riot police, for the
fourth day of protests since the court disbanded the only Kurdish party
in parliament.
In the town of Doğubeyazıt, angry protesters threw
petrol bombs and stones at police, who fired back with tear gas and
water cannon.
Clashes have erupted mainly in villages in the
southeast, but also in the heart of İstanbul's shopping and
entertainment district on Sunday, raising ethnic tensions.
The
European Commission warned Turkey on Monday that the court verdict
could deprive a substantial number of voters of representation, which
it said was essential to Ankara fulfilling its democratic mandate.
The
ruling AK Party wants to push reforms aimed at ending decades of
conflict with Kurdish separatists by increasing the rights of Turkey's
roughly 12 million Kurds.
Investors who are hardened to the emerging market's domestic turmoil were relatively untroubled by the events.
The
Turkish lira and bonds weakened moderately on Monday but shares were in
positive territory, boosted by news of Abu Dhabi's surprise $10 billion
bail-out of debt-stricken Dubai.
DTP
deputies, riding an open-top bus, received a heroes' welcome when they
arrived at Diyarbakır on Monday after a flight from Ankara, as around
5,000 people flooded the streets in a largely peaceful protest against
the party's closure.
The chairman of the former party, speaking
in the predominantly Kurdish city, said there was no longer any reason
to remain in parliament.
"As you know, we have said before
there is no reason to stay in parliament if our struggle for democracy
is not taken into consideration ... We will submit our resignations to
the speaker of the parliament in the shortest possible time," said DTP
chairman Ahmet Türk.
Other MPs speculated that they could join an alternative pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party.
Earlier
in the day police fired water cannon when a group of youths pelted them
with rocks and ripped up street signs. Protesters also stoned a local
office of the AK Party and several people were arrested.
Some protesters carried portraits of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the terrorist PKK.
The
Constitutional Court ordered the closure of the DTP after finding it
guilty of cooperating with the PKK, branded a terrorist organisation by
Washington, Brussels and Ankara.
The PKK has fought for 25
years for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey. Some 40,000 people
have died in the violence since 19
