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| Turkish court bans pro-Kurd party | Turkish court bans pro-Kurd party |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| Turkey's Constitutional Court has voted to ban the country's largest pro-Kurdish party because of alleged links with Kurdish separatist rebels. | Turkey's Constitutional Court has voted to ban the country's largest pro-Kurdish party because of alleged links with Kurdish separatist rebels. |
| Turkey's chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya argued that the Democratic Society Party (DTP) took orders from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). | Turkey's chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya argued that the Democratic Society Party (DTP) took orders from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). |
| The DTP is the latest in a series of pro-Kurdish parties to have been closed down in Turkey. | The DTP is the latest in a series of pro-Kurdish parties to have been closed down in Turkey. |
| The case has been criticised by the EU, which Turkey hopes to join. | The case has been criticised by the EU, which Turkey hopes to join. |
| The 11 judges in the Constitutional Court ruled that the DTP had become a "focal point of activities against the indivisible unity of the state, the country and the nation", court president Hasim Kilic told reporters. | |
| He said DTP leaders Ahmet Turk and Aysel Tugluk had been stripped of parliamentary immunity and banned from politics for five years along with 35 other party members. | |
| All party assets would be seized by the treasury, Mr Kilic added. | |
| The DTP holds 21 seats in Turkey's 550-member parliament. | |
| Some 40,000 people have died since the PKK launched an armed campaign in 1984. However, the government has recently sought to improve ties with the Kurdish minority. | |
| Analysts say the court's ruling could derail the government's initiative. |