A bomb attack in Ankara on Sunday morning has delayed a press statement Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Green Left Party, had planned for Sunday, at the start of the new parliamentary year, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
The statement was expected to emphasise the urgent need for democratisation in Turkey, a democratic solution to the Kurdish question and an end to what they call the “policy of isolation”. It would also have urged political actors to engage in resolving these pressing issues.
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey will start a new legislative year today, Sunday 1 October. However, heightened security measures will be in place due to the bomb attack, which took place just a mile away outside Ankara’s main police station, a few hours before the reopening of parliament at 2 pm.
Security checks at the entrances to the parliament complex were tightened and access for vehicles was restricted in the aftermath of the attack. Only members of parliament were allowed to enter and leave the parliament building, while all others, including advisers, were subject to restrictions.
The Green Left Party had planned to release a major press statement on the country’s Kurdish question on the parliamentary premises. The party sees the parliament as a central place to address these issues, so the decision to release the statement in the parliament building itself underlined its importance.
The statement was reportedly intended to shed light on the party’s new agenda for the coming period, with particular emphasis on their work against the continued total isolation of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who has been held incommunicado for two and a half years in İmralı Island Prison in northwest Turkey.