Four people out of eight detainees were arrested on a court order after a police operation on the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern province of Adıyaman, while remaining four were released on Monday.
Following the police raids on 16 addresses against suspected PKK members in Adıyaman on June 4, eight people were taken into custody by counter-terrorism police and referred to a court, which ordered the arrest of four of them. The rest of the detainees were released after testifying to a prosecutor. During the raids, a large number of documents concerning the PKK were seized.
Along with the PKK, the operation targeted the members of Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), which is an umbrella organization for the PKK and other related groups, as well as the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), a youth offshoot of the PKK. The detentions were made in the districts of Kahta and Besni.
The PKK is designated as a “terrorist organization” by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), as well as Turkey. The 32-year-old conflict, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives, halted in March 2013 as part of the settlement process initiated between the PKK and the Turkish government. However, the PKK ended the ceasefire in the summer of 2015.
