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By bianet:
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy Ertuğrul Kürkçü has criticized the ratification of the Uludere Parliamentary Commission draft report, saying that it aims to protect the Turkish state rather than its citizens.
A parliamentary commission in charge of investigating the Uludere incident – the Turkish military air strike that killed 34 civilians in December 2011 – ratified its draft report yesterday without the approval votes of commission members from the opposition parties.
“The AKP government and Turkish Army seem to collaborate on the Uludere incident. The draft report doesn’t point out anybody who might be responsible for the death of 34 civilians,” Ertuğrul Kürkçü told bianet.
“The commission members from the AKP also voted in favor to keep the report confidential. This move is against all democratic customs of openness, transparency and accessibility.”
Kürkçü said the draft report aimed to describe the Uludere incident rather than explaining it.
“The draft report gives no explanation of what happened and why. There is no elaborate analysis that really aims to protect the victims of Uludere incident. The draft report mechanically describes how the air strike has been launched due to a wrong intelligence resulting in the loss of 34 lives. It simply blames the lack of coordination between military and civilian intelligence units, which otherwise should detect that those 34 civilians were indeed only smugglers and not terrorists,” Kürkçü continued.
“The draft investigation report finds no involvement of senior military or government officials in the incident. It accepts all military input without question. There is no mention of a previous interior ministry report either. Under these circumstances, we can say that this report draft has been composed to protect the Turkish state’s interest, rather than the rights of its citizens”.
Kürkçü also said the opposition party members of the commission were preparing to put a declaratory clause on the draft report by next Tuesday.
The original article has been lightly edited.
