HDP co-chair says MİT law only protects intelligence agency

THE APO /  HAKAN FIDAN DIALOGUE

The government has defended the changes, saying it will help facilitate the ongoing talks between MİT officials and the leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

16 April 2014, Tuesday /ANKARA, TODAY’S ZAMAN – The government’s recent proposed changes to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) law are in violation of the EU’s Copenhagen criteria, and it is only designed to protect MİT,” the People’s Democracy Party (HDP) Co-chairman Ertuğrul Kürkçü has said.

In a harsh criticism of the bill that will give extensive powers to MİT if passed, Kürkçü said, “We can only laugh at the discourse claiming that such oppressive laws are to be passed to guarantee the settlement process.” The government has defended the changes, saying it will help facilitate the ongoing talks between MİT officials and the leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).Kürkçü was speaking at today’s weekly parliamentary group meeting of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) instead of BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş. The HDP was created from the BDP to enter elections in western cities.Kürkçü accused the government of not taking the necessary step to move the settlement process forward. He also slammed the government’s recent onslaught on the Constitutional Court. “The government is trying to blow up the Constitutional Court. Calling the high court’s decisions to lift [social media] bans, and the changes to the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) law ‘unpatriotic’ is tantamount to employing the language used by Ergenekon,” Kürkçü said, referring to the coup plotting network known as Ergenekon. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-344805-hdp-co-chair-says-mit-law-only-protects-intelligence-agency.html