A pro-Kurdish political party has hit out over a decision to ban it by Turkey’s Constitutional Court.

Chairman of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) Ahmet Turk said the country “cannot solve its problems by closing down its political groups”. The eagerly awaited ruling imposes a five-year ban from politics on the DTP, the only Kurdish party in parliament, because of its links to separatist militant group, the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party. Residents in Diyarbakir, the main city in the mainly Kurdish southeast, voiced their disappointment. One man described the outcome as an “attack against democracy.” Elsewhere, others expressed their views more violently. Hundreds of people clashed with police in the eastern city of Hakkari in protest at the continued imprisonment of Kurdish rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan.More about: Kurds, Minorities, Turkey

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