Dutch police raid PKK meeting, hold 55 for questioning

AMSTERDAM - Reuters

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Dutch police raided a secret meeting of members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Netherlands early on Monday morning, and have held 55 people for questioning, the public prosecutors office said in a statement, Reuters has reported.

The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984 and is designated as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. It has been banned in the Netherlands since 2007.

A group of PKK members were meeting in a public park in Ellemeet, a village in the southwest of the country, at six in the morning when about 150 police raided the area, acting on a tip-off from the intelligence service, the prosecutors office said in its statement.

The meetings had started on Friday and were expected to last a week, the prosecutors office said, adding that the PKK recruits young Kurds in the Netherlands for its armed struggle against the Turkish army.