Erdogan says Turkey to implement court ruling on jailed Kurdish politician

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday his government will respect any ruling by an Ankara court which is expected to evaluate a recent final ruling by Europe's top human rights court demanding the release of jailed Kurdish Selahattin Demirtas.

"This country is a country of law. We will abide by whatever the judiciary says," Erdogan told reporters after his ruling party's parliamentary group meeting. "Whatever the judiciary decides will happen."

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled twice on the Demirtas case saying his rights have been violated, but Turkey keeps ignoring them.

Ankara's last appeal to the ECHR ruling was rejected on Monday.

Turkish justice minister said on Wednesday that an Ankara court is going to evaluate the ECHR ruling.

Erdogan's remarks on Demirtas came a day after his ally Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and father of the current peace process between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said the release of Demirtas would benefit Turkey.

Many legal experts expect Demirtas to be released soon, citing the removal of all legal obstacles keeping him behind bars.

Demirtas was the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) when he and a large number of his colleagues from the party, which has now been rebranded as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) due to the party’s legal issues, were jailed over alleged ties with the PKK in November 2016.

PKK and Turkey have publicly been engaged in peace talks for about a year.

The PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire after its founder, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been jailed since 1999, released a message in February calling on the group to end its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state. On July 11, a group of PKK fighters burned their weapons in Jasana Cave in Sulaimani province in a symbolic disarmament as part of the peace process. A Turkish parliamentary commission is now formulating the legal foundations for peace with the PKK.

 

Updated at 11:02pm