Selahattin Demirtas has been elected as chairman of the new pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, and Gulten Kisanak has been named co-chairman.

The party’s first congress held in Ankara on Monday brought together 450 members, who also voted for an administrative board, Hurriyet reported.

The BDP was formed in early 2008, just a few months after the indictment against the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, was announced in November 2007. The Constitutional Court ruled to close the DTP due to its links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is listed as a terror organization by a number of international communities, including the European Union and the United States.