BDP says it is exerting all efforts for release of kidnapped soldiers

ANKARA

BDP has launched all initiatives for the release of abducted soldiers, co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş said. AA Photo

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş has expressed optimism over the release of two Turkish soldiers who were reportedly abducted by an armed group in the southeast of the country over the weekend.

“We got information from the very start that the two sergeants were abducted. We launched all initiatives for their release at that very moment. I hope that we will get a result about their release in the shortest time,” Demirtaş told reporters in Ankara on April 28, as he attended a ceremony for the joining of a majority of BDP lawmakers to the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP).

In Diyarbakır, the BDP’s provincial co-chair, Zübeyde Zümrüt, told the BBC Turkish service that the soldiers were abducted by people protesting the building of new outposts in the region.

“They will definitely not release the sergeants before the outpost construction is halted, they are very determined,” Zümrüt was quoted as saying.

In Ankara, Demirtaş also touched upon the same issue, calling on both the government and the General Staff to explain why such large outposts were being built despite the peace process.

“Now that there is a peace process, now that there will be peace and now that people are coming down from the mountains, why do you build hundreds of outposts in places where poverty is so intense? Wouldn’t the war be over? Are these outposts being constructed so that they will become museums? People there are reacting against this. This reaction is fair and it should be well regarded,” he said.