Erdogan stepping up crackdown on Kurds

Ali Rajab

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is launching a new crackdown against Kurdish opposition figures, accusing them of joining terrorist organizations, including the Kurdistan People’s Workers Party.

This is strange because Erdogan struck a peace agreement with the party’s leader Abdullah Öcalan when he came to power in Turkey.

Turkish police arrested 74 people accused of having links with the Kurdistan People’s Workers Party which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, according to Anadolu Agency.

It said police raided homes in a number of Turkish cities, including in Istanbul to search for suspects in connection with the same case.

The agency said police are searching for a total of 106 people involved in the case.

It said police confiscated unlicensed pistols and digital documents as well as banned books during the raids they made.

The Bar Association in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır condemned the latest arrests.

It noted that 17 of its members had been arrested within the abovementioned campaign.

Diyarbakır will not be scared by these arrests, the association wrote on Twitter.

The association added that the arrests attest the presence of a desire inside official quarters for suppressing its voice.

The opposition People’s Democratic Party, which backs the Kurds, came under tight security supervision under accusations of having links with the Kurdistan People’s Workers’ Party.

Some observers attribute the ongoing campaign against the Kurds to the latest election victory in the United States by Joe Biden.

The campaign, they said, reflects the presence of fears inside decision-making circles in Turkey from Biden’s sympathetic approach to the Kurds.