Justice Minister Says The PKK Militants Can Vote In The Elections Too

Mehmet Ali Şahin, Minister of Justice, says the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on the mountains have the right to vote in the next elections as well.

Talking about the announcement by Oktay Vural, a deputy of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), that there were PKK militants in the electoral registers, Şahin said the following:

“Even if one is a terrorist, as long as he/she is a Turkish citizen even while on the mountains, at least eighteen years old and there are no judicial decisions against him/her, then he/she can of course be in these registers. Let that person on the mountain come down and vote. This way we will have the chance to meet this person. Come down.”

Following Minister’s speech, Vural held a press release and said that even those PKK militants who were killed in the clashes were on these registers, too.

Previosly, Vural had announced that the name of Salman Kurtulan, a PKK member, was in the electoral register of the province of Adana according to the information he had obtained from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK).  

The local elections will be on March 29, 2009. (TK/TB)