Scores detained in anti-PKK operations across Turkey

ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

Dozens of people were detained on March 15 in police operations targeting alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliates.

The operations came two days after suspected militants of the PKK killed at least 35 people in a suicide attack in Ankara amid ongoing security operations against the outlawed group’s militants in town centers in Turkey’s southeast.

The detained suspects yesterday included members of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). The party’s provincial leader in the Central Anatolian province of Konya was among the seven suspects detained in the city.

The target of the operations in some provinces were alleged members of the outlawed PKK’s youth branch, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H). In the Thracian province of Edirne, four university students were detained, while eight students of the Uludağ University were detained in Bursa. The number of suspects detained for alleged links to the YDG-H was 17 in the Turgutlu district of the western province of Manisa.

There were also police operations and detentions on March 15 in Siirt, Muş, Ağrı, Antalya, Kocaeli, Denizli and Kırklareli.

According to a toll compiled by state-run Anadolu Agency, 233 suspects have been detained for alleged links to the PKK since the Ankara attack on March 13. Thirty-one of the detained suspects were arrested, the report said, adding that 12 suspects had been detained for suspected links to the Ankara bombing.