New Kurdish party elects leader

Selahattin Demirtas, a parliamentarian from the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, was elected chairman to Peace & Democracy Party (BDP) on Monday.

Demirtas won 288 of 289 votes during the first extraordinary congress of BDP. One vote was invalid.

Meanwhile, Mehmet Ocalan, brother of Abdullah Ocalan (jailed head of PKK), was elected member to party assembly.

On December 11, 2009, Constitutional Court closed Democratic Society Party (DTP) and banned a number of its representatives from politics. BDP replaced the banned Democratic Society Party.

/World Bulletin/