Turk, Ahmet

(1942- )

   Despite his surname, Ahmet Turk has long been one of the leading ethnic Kurdish politicians in Turkey. He was born in Derik, a town in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin. He first entered the Turkish parliament as a member of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) from Mardin. Since then he has been a parliamentary member of the Social Democrat Peoples Party (SHP) and Halkin Emek Partisi (HEP), or Peoples Labor Party, but he was also imprisoned on several occasions for his nonviolent support of the Kurdish cause. In 2005, he was a founder of the De-mokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP), the new Kurdish party that entered the Turkish Parliament as a result of the elections of 25 July 2007. Turk was the DTP's main leader, serving as both its president and chairman. He also frequently traveled abroad to international conferences. However, on 11 December 2009, the Turkish Constitutional Court banned the DTP for alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). As a result, Turk also was banned from participating in politics for five years.