JINHA

ISTANBUL - The Peace Bloc in Turkey is preparing for actions to stop the AKP's policies of war in Turkey.

The Peace Bloc, a group of civil society and political organizations formed recently to stop the AKP's escalating policy of war, has called for a rally in Istanbul for August 9.

"Women are standing together," said BeyzaÜstün, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)'s Istanbul representative, on the efforts of women in the Peace Bloc. Beyza recently took part in a delegation of women who traveled to the Kurdish district of Lice, where locals reported that soldiers had startedforest fires and let them burn, burning villages that had been burned to the ground once before--by Turkish soldiers during the war in the 1990s. The delegation of women gathered eyewitness observations, disproving the state's claim that the fire was insignificant or accidental.

Beyza said that the goal of the Bloc was "to bring to life a peace where no homes or forests burn, no youth die, no peoples are killed, no freedoms are restricted." She said they would not allow the forces of capital and the government to enrich themselves on a war economy.

SevtapAkdağ, a member of the Peace Bloc's coordinating body, said that the struggle for peace was at the same time a women's struggle.

"In Turkey, all victims of war, all workers, youth and elderly people who will be harmed by war need to say no to this war, especially women," said Sevtap.

(en-sö/dk/gc/cm)