Turkish Speaker May Broker Imprisoned Lawmakers’ Release
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Turkish parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek met with opposition lawmakers to help broker the release of eight politicians who were elected to the assembly while in jail awaiting trial on charges of terrorism and plotting coups.
Deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, the Nationalist Action Party and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party convened at the speaker’s office today in Ankara to submit proposals that would allow the politicians, elected June 12, to join the National Assembly pending their trials, a spokesman for Cicek said in a telephone interview. Since the vote, the opposition and the government have clashed over the issue of freeing the six men and two women.