But after it emerged that representatives of the PKK could also take part, participation was forbidden. Seven Kurdish MPs took part anyway and all were expelled from the party,[2] even though the PKK was not present at the congress and in fact protested in front of the congress against it.[3] As a result Aydin Güven Gürkan, 12 other MPs of the SHP, dozens of regional party administrators and 3000 party members resigned from the SHP.[3] Nevertheless the party was one of the first parties to acknowledge that the Kurdish Question was not just an issue of terrorism. In the South Eastern Report published by the party in 1990 the problems of not acknowledging the Kurds as a distinct ethnic group were noticed.