28 May 2008, Wednesday | TODAY'S ZAMAN  ANKARA 

The Democratic Society Party (DTP) received a blow from within yesterday as the chairman of the party's parliamentary group, Ahmet Türk, resigned from his post.

The party has been in chaos for some time now after newly elected party chairman Nurettin Demirtaş had to give up his position when he was arrested and sent to the army for evading his obligatory military service.

It has been speculated that Türk's resignation came as a response to pressure from Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The election of Mardin deputy Emine Ayna as the party's deputy chairwoman in the last party assembly was also perceived as a victory for the Öcalan faction within the party.

Ayna will lead the parliamentary group from now on. Asked whether he will be a candidate for the leadership of the party in the next DTP congress, Türk declined to comment and said he would prefer to discuss the issue when the time comes. The party congress will take place on July 5.

The rivalry in the party between those loyal to Türk and those loyal to Öcalan has been growing for some time now. On Nov. 9, 2007 Türk and his co-chair Aysel Tuğluk were forced to leave their posts to make way for Demirtaş and Ayna, who are both known to hold more radical views on the solution of the Kurdish Problem that are more in line with the PKK's ideology.

During Türk's visit to northern Iraq on May 7 and 8 the Öcalan faction of the DTP elected Emine Ayna as the new leader of the party and Türk was left with the chairmanship of the parliamentary group. Türk and his group, which includes experienced Kurdish politicians such as Tuğluk, Sırrı Sakık, Nuri Yaman, Hasip Kaplan and Akın Birdal, have argued that the normalization of Kurdish politics will be possible only after breaking all links between the DTP and Öcalan.