Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş confirmed that he is for the dismissal of the terrorist Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), which had claimed responsibility for a recent suicide bomb attack, in response to a question by BBC Turkish.
According to the BBC report, Demirtaş was asked “Are you demanding that the organization [TAK] halt its actions completely and be dispersed?” and responded “Of course.”
“We cannot be tied in any way to these terrorist attacks directly targeting civilians. The HDP cannot have any tolerance for these,” Demirtaş said.
With regards to the claims by the government that the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was sending messages to the ruling party that they were ready to lay down weapons, Demirtaş said he did not receive such information.
TAK is an offshoot of the PKK, which claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed six police officers and five civilians died and injured 36 others in İstanbul’s central Beyazıt district. The incident happened when a parked car exploded while a bus carrying riot police was passing by it.
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.