More Women İn Politics Needed, Says Turkish Presidential Candidate

Presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas has called for more women to be involved in Turkish politics.



During a conference with KA-DER, Turkey's largest womens' rights organization, in Istanbul on Friday, Demirtas hoped that a woman to run for presidential office soon.



He said: "The reason women don't run now is because they have a lack of visibility. It is important that women articulate their own concerns to the public.



"I wish my wife had been able to run as candidate but the current system wouldn't allow her."



Demirtas was nominated by two pro-Kurdish parties, the Peace and Democracy Party and the Peoples' Democratic Party. While retaining his Kurdish identity, he also wants to be seen as a Turk and a defender of women.



"The Republic was founded on the constructed identity of Turkishness," he told journalists. "If everyone living in Turkey was able to say 'I am a Turk' then that would be alright, but if I was to say 'I am Turkish' I would be denying my identity."



Turning to his own support in the Kurdish south-east, where womens' rights are dragging behind the rest of the country, Demirtas said tribalism was an obstacle to progress but noted that the town of Hakkari has a female mayor.



He also touched on honor killings, in which women are murdered, usually by male relatives, for bringing 'dishonor' on their family. He said: "The culture of honor does not change easily but is a matter of long-term struggle… The state may make laws but we also need a judiciary and police force who will implement them."



He said many communities in Turkey had suffered oppression – Kurds, women, Armenians and Alevi Muslims.



Referring to the now-lifted ban on Kurdish teaching in schools, he said: "I didn't learn about oppression from books but by the struggle to read books… Kurds and Turks, Muslims and Alevis, all can live a new life together."



Discussing abortion he said only women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. "Not your husband, nor your father, nor [Prime Minister] Tayyip Erdogan has the right to dictate to women on this subject," he added.



www.aa.com.tr/en - İstanbul