HDP deputy claims Turkey handed over YPG fighters to al-Nusra-allied group

ANKARA

AA photo

A member of parliament has claimed that Turkey has handed over six fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), blaming the government for committing a war crime.

“The undersecretary of the Interior Ministry has openly confessed to us that these six wounded YPG members were handed to the front organization of al-Nusra and gangs close to them,” İdris Baluken, the deputy parliamentary group chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), told reporters at a press conference on Aug. 10.

Approached by Hürriyet Daily News for further clarification, Baluken said the undersecretary told him last week that the six YPG members were “deported.”

“When somebody is deported, it means handed over to border gate authorities. In this case, it took place at Cilvegözü and everybody knows very well under whose control that place is,” Baluken said, referring to news reports that Ahrar al-Sham controlled the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, opposite Turkey’s Cilvegözü border entrance.

Baluken said the undersecretary told him that he was unaware of identities and affiliation of the administrators at Bab al-Hawa. 

Six YPG members were detained on July 25 during a police raid on a guesthouse in Ankara owned by the Education and Science Workers’ Union (Eğitim-Sen). Soon after their detention, they were handed over to Ahrar al-Sham, Baluken said, underlining that despite intense efforts by both HDP deputies and lawyers, they were not able to obtain even a single official paper or document concerning their detention, which ended with acquittal.

The office of the undersecretary of the Interior Ministry was not yet available for comment when Hürriyet Daily News went to press.