By AYLA ALBAYRAK
ISTANBUL—The Turkish government, seeking to defuse a potential crisis over an eight-week hunger strike by hundreds of imprisoned Kurds, said it would propose legislation to allow the use of Kurdish language in courts if the prisoners abandoned their protest.
The move, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc in Ankara, comes amid concerns that more prisoners and Kurdish lawmakers could join the almost 700 inmates who have been refusing solid food to try to exert pressure on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, amid reports by Turkey’s main medical association that some of the protesters are at risk of death.
“A person will be able to defend themselves in court in the language in which they can best express themselves,” Mr. Arinc told reporters late Monday after a cabinet meeting where the issue was discussed. He appealed to the prisoners, saying “You would be alone responsible for the possible negative consequences…Do not upset us, do not upset our nation,” and said the legislation would be proposed in coming days. It is expected to pass, as the ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, has a majority in Parliament.
European Pressphoto Agency
Turkish police detained a protester at a demonstration in support of the hunger strikers Sunday in Istanbul.
The prospect that Kurdish protesters would agree to the offer appeared slim on Tuesday as the hunger strike moved into its 56th day, with the leading pro-Kurdish party, the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, reiterating its solidarity with the inmates.
While several Kurdish lawmakers acknowledged Tuesday that allowing the use of Kurdish in courts was important, they also said they might join the strike in coming days, unless concrete progress is made in fulfilling the prisoners’ demands. Those demands—the right to education in their mother tongue and an end to the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, the convicted PKK leader who was captured in 1999 and is serving a life sentence on an island in the Marmara Sea—haven’t been met by the government.
The offer of an olive branch to the protesters contrasts with the hard-line stance taken until now by Prime Minister Erdogan. He has repeatedly described the hunger strike as a “show,” and accused protesters of making common cause with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.
The head of the Turkish Medical Association has warned that such comments risked hardening the resolve of protesters, who include politicians, PKK fighters and alleged members of an organization that Turkish prosecutors say is the urban arm of the PKK. The protesters—who are subsisting on only water, sugar and some vitamin supplements—could begin to die on the 60th day, the medical association warned.
The possibility of deaths from hunger strikes in Turkish jails is a grim reminder of a number of deaths since 1980. Some 144 people, including Kurds and leftists, have starved themselves to death since then, according to the medical association.
The government’s growing concern over the potential implications of the strike was underscored late Tuesday when President Abdullah Gul summoned Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin to discuss the strike, according to Turkey’s state news agency.
The prospect that jailed Kurdish protesters could die in the weeks ahead follows one of the bloodiest summers in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state. The conflict has cost some 40,000 lives since then. The PKK subsequently scaled back its demands, and now says it is fighting for Kurdish autonomy rather than secession from Turkey.
Protesting prisoners didn’t immediately respond to the government’s plea to end their hunger strike.
The PKK said in a statement Tuesday that it believed the hunger strike could end if the protesters’ “reasonable demands” were met.
Write to Ayla Albayrak at ayla.albayrak@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared November 7, 2012, on page A20 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: To Cool Protest, Turkey Set to Allow Use of Kurdish in Courts.
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