President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected a recent call by Selahattin Demirtas, a Kurdish politician and co-head of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), for Kurdish autonomy. Mr Erdogan labelled the comments as “treason” and accused Mr Demirtas of challenging Article 14 of the constitution, which bans activities deemed to “violate the indivisible integrity of the state”.
Mr. Demirtas’s comments were in support of a declaration by a Kurdish umbrella group – the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) – which called for “autonomous regions” and “self-governance bodies”, and is said to represent a shift to more mainstream politics of the idea of Kurdish self-rule.
