Autonomy is announced in southeast, MHP leader criticizes

SİVAS – Doğan News Agency

Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy group leader Oktay Vural has accused the government of failing to exert control in the southeast amid recent unrest.

Vural said de facto autonomy had been announced in the southeastern part of the country and that the government had failed to maintain control over the region.

“The state is sleeping today. The terror organization [outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party - PKK] is establishing courts and security forces. They collect money from locals. The governor is assigning a local administrator. Autonomy is being announced. The state is sleeping,” Vural said Dec. 29.

Vural’s criticism came after three people were killed in Cizre on Dec. 27 in street battles between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey’s Hizbullah, whose members are mostly Kurdish Islamists. The street battles came more than two months after clashes in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern provinces led to the deaths of about 40 people. The clashes between the two groups and the security forces continue yesterday in Cizre.

Members of the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), the legal arm of Hizbullah, confronted the YDG-H, the youth branch of the PKK, at 3 a.m. on Dec. 27 in Cizre, according to Doğan News Agency. The confrontation turned into a gunfight in several neighborhoods early in the morning. While increasingly larger crowds used long-barreled guns against each other, particularly in the Nur neighborhood, security forces and armored vehicles failed to enter the hotspots due to trenches dug by the members of the YDG-H.

The homes of several Hüda-Par members were besieged by armed YDG-H members, Doğan News Agency reported. At least three people were killed while three others were injured in the Dec. 27 clashes, the Şırnak Governor’s Office announced.