Police arrests dozens in operation against ‘urban’ PKK

ANKARA

Cihan File Photo

Turkish security forces have launched an operation aimed at the “urban structure” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in which more than 20 people have so far been detained, the state-run Anadolu agency reported on Oct. 6.

The operation, centered in the capital city of Ankara, was launched through simultaneous raids in six separate provinces, the agency said, without elaborating on the names of five provinces. Anadolu, however, noted that teachers, public servants and university students are among the 22 who have been taken into custody.

Earlier, privately owned Etkin News Agency (ETHA) reported that there are six executives of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) among these detainees. 

The Oct. 6 raids come days after at least 44 suspects, including local executives of the HDP, were detained in a pre-dawn “anti-terror” police operation in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Unit officers raided more than 60 separate locations, supported by police helicopters, around 5 a.m. across the city’s 28 districts.