The KCK/TM allegedly functions as the urban arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Several suspected KCK/TM members were detained in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Diyarbakır, Siirt, Hakkari, Tunceli, Batman, Şanlırfa, Şırnak and Van. Among them were mayors of several predominantly Kurdish cities. The 35 suspects were examined at a state hospital in Diyarbakır and were later transferred to the Diyarbakır Public Prosecutor's Office.
They were interrogated by six prosecutors. Around 50 lawyers were also present during the interrogation. The suspects were questioned about their positions within the KCK/TM. Prosecutors’ questions included: Do you force people to subscribe to the organization’s publications? Do you use municipality funds to aid the terrorist organization? Did you organize the illegal demonstrations during Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Diyarbakır? Did you ever attend KCK/TM operations? Thursday’s operation was the fifth against the group.
An indictment prepared in May about the structure of the KCK/TM indicated that the KCK/TM has a “constitution” that talks about plans regarding a “democratic republic” and “free municipalities. The indictment also indicated that the KCK/TM takes orders from one of the senior leaders of the PKK, Murat Karayılan, who allegedly said, “Try to have the Kurdish people pour out onto the streets and demand their rights.”
Sources
also said the KCK/TM was restructured following an operation against
the group on April 14 and that they started to act upon jailed PKK
leader Abdullah Öcalan’s statement that his prison cell was too
restrictive. Then street demonstrations followed in which four people
died. During the street demonstrations, security forces monitored the
phone conversations of KCK/TM members, resulting in yesterday’s
operations. In the meantime, a Diyarbakır court issued an arrest
warrant for Yüksel Baran, the mayor of Diyarbakır’s Bağlar district.
The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which former deputies of the now-defunct Democratic Society Party (DTP) joined earlier this week, denounced Thursday’s operation against suspected KCK/TM members in a press conference in İstanbul on Friday. A group of BDP members convened in front of the party’s building in Beyoğlu and stated that more than 80 people were detained on Thursday on suspicion of membership in the KCK/TM. The group also slammed government efforts for a democratization initiative to settle the years-long Kurdish question. The group claimed that the efforts were a plan by the United States.
“Stability in the region [Middle East] can be restored only through consensus among northern Iraq, Turkey and the US. The US believes that such a consensus is possible only through cooperation between Turkey and northern Iraq for the elimination of the PKK. This is what the real initiative is,” the group claimed.
Meanwhile, around 3,000 people gathered in front of the Diyarbakır Municipality building to protest the detentions.