Zana reportedly determined not to repeat oath before parliament

A leading Kurdish politician will reportedly not repeat an oath she is constitutionally required to take when taking parliamentary office even though the legislature's speaker declared her reworded version to be invalid on Nov. 17.

"While this many young people have been dying, I couldn't have remained silent," Leyla Zana, an A?r? deputy for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was quoted as saying by CNN Türk late on Nov. 17.

Earlier in the day, at the first session of the newly elected parliament at the oath-taking ceremony, Zana, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who spent a decade in prison for links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after speaking Kurdish in parliament in 1991, used the phrase "the great nation of Turkey" instead of "the great Turkish nation," prompting the acting speaker, Deniz Baykal, an Antalya deputy for the Republican People's Party (CHP), to demand she recite the oath once more. However, Zana had already left the assembly hall. 

"Some things need to change; I venture everything," Zana was quoted as saying by CNN Türk. "Besides, I had used the phrase 'the nation of Turkey' instead of 'the Turkish nation' during a previous oath-taking ceremony as well," she said.

Since there are no clear provisions concerning a similar incident either in the Constitution or in the internal regulations of parliament, the customary rules of the national assembly are set to be applied in the case.

During the next session that Zana attends, the speaker will invite her to the rostrum to take her oath before the assembly, T24 news portal reported. If she chooses not to do so, Zana will be disqualified from participating in legislative activities of parliament whether at the commission level or in plenary sessions...