Free Cause Party

A total of 12 political parties have withdrawn from the June 7 parliamentary elections in Turkey, with 11 of them not submitting their lists of nomination candidates by April 7.

Eleven of the 31 political parties which were eligible to enter the elections on June 7 did not submit their lists, automatically disqualifying them from the election ballot. 

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) will be printed next to each other on the June 7 parliamentary election ballots.

The order of the 31 political parties running in the elections was designated by the drawing of lots by the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on April 3.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has greeted around 100,000 people who protested French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbak?r, while also cheering for Hizbullah.

Around 100,000 people have protested the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbak?r, a Kurdish-majority city in Turkey's southeast, cheering for Turkish Hizbullah.

The Lovers of the Prophet Platform organized the two-hour long Jan. 24 protest at the central ?stasyon Square with the participation of thousands of demonstrators coming from nearby towns, Do?an News Agency reported. 

Peoples? Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirta? has slammed the fact that the authorities have yet to identify any suspects regarding the seven recent killings in the restive town of Cizre in the southeastern province of ??rnak, which has been roiled by protests for the past month.

The Cizre district in the southeastern province of ??rnak has witnessed a series of deadly clashes over the past month, threatening the ongoing Kurdish peace process and becoming a point of bitter dispute between President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Peoples? Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirta?.

A Trabzon intelligence police chief, who was accused of negligence in the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, has been assigned to the Cizre district of the southeastern province of ??rnak as chief of police.

The municipality of Cizre, the southeastern town in the province of Şırnak that recently witnessed deadly unrest, has begun closing ditches dug by the youth branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The ditches had been dug in a bid to prevent the security forces enter particular neighborhoods.

Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy group leader Oktay Vural has accused the government of failing to exert control in the southeast amid recent unrest.

Vural said de facto autonomy had been announced in the southeastern part of the country and that the government had failed to maintain control over the region.

Both Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is focused on the Kurdish problem, are giving messages one after another these days about an upswing in talks amid reports of escalated tension in the predominantly Kurdish east and southeast of the country.