Turkish protesters shout slogans against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as they hold a Turkish flag during a demonstration in Istanbul yesterday.
AFP/Istanbul
Hundreds of Turks yesterday staged a demonstration in Istanbul in protest at the resumption of peace talks with Kurd rebels, saying they sullied the memory of soldiers killed in the near three-decade conflict.
“We want respect for Turks … We want respect for the martyrs,” the demonstrators chanted.
The protest was held a day after three Kurdish lawmakers visited Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), at his island prison, the second such visit since the peace negotiations resumed late last year. “Hang Ocalan,” the Istanbul crowd chanted, according to an AFP correspondent.
Some demonstrators made hand gestures associated with extreme right-wing group Grey Wolves and demanded that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic-leaning party leave office.
Turkey’s secret services resumed negotiations with Ocalan with the ultimate aim of ending the PKK’s fight for autonomy in the southeast that has claimed more than 40,000 lives since 1984.
The PKK is branded a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
