Turkish police fired tear gas to disperse several hundred protesters in Istanbul’s main Taksim square demonstrating against security operations and curfews in the southeast, Reuters witnesses said on Sunday.
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Turkey’s government says militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have placed explosive devices, dug trenches and set up barricades in these areas.
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It has also targeted those involved in Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 with similar measures which expire in June. Sanctions were introduced initially for a year on July 31, 2014, following Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
The operations mark a new escalation in five months of fighting between the army and the PKK since a two-and-a-half year truce collapsed in July.
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“The Turkish government should rein in its security forces, immediately stop the abusive and disproportionate use of force and investigate the deaths and injuries caused by its operations”, Human Rights Watch senior Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said.
The operation is taking place in three Kurdish towns Cizre, Silopi and Sur, along the Turkish borders with Syria and Iraq, where Ankara claims the PKK has been intensifying its presence.
Turkey is on alert after 103 people were killed on October 10 when two suicide bombers ripped through a crowd of peace activists in the capital Ankara, the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history. During repeated prolonged curfews imposed by Turkish officials on entire neighborhoods, locals have been left without access to food, and water and electricity supplies have been cut.
Ferhat Encu, a pro-Kurdish lawmaker in Sirnak, said on Twitter the bodies of those killed were still on the streets and in people’s homes due to curfews.
Turkish security forces launched a new offensive in the mainly Kurdish region last week, backed by tanks and thousands of troops, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to root out militants.
The local authorities in the southeastern city of Nusaybin said Monday that a curfew measure in the town that had previously applied to three areas had been widened to cover 11 more, essentially the whole town. In recent years the PKK has been pressing for greater autonomy and rights for the Kurds, Turkey’s largest minority.
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In a separate incident, two Turkish soldiers were killed and six wounded in a PKK roadside bombing attack as their vehicle travelled on the road close to the eastern town of Bitlis, state media said. Turkey, which considers the PKK a terrorist organization, has vowed to “cleanse” the country of the rebels. The bomb was detonated while fighting between the security forces and PKK militants are ongoing in the district.
