Turkey arrests 110 over alleged Kurdish militant links

Turkish police on Tuesday detained 110 people in an operation targeting people accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, security sources said.

The operation extended over 21 provinces but was focused on the Kurdish-majority town of Diyarbakir in the southeast, the sources said.

A pro-Kurdish lawmaker said politicians, lawyers, journalists and artists were among those arrested in the raids, which come before presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14.

Why is the PKK being targeted?

Security sources referred to the raids targeting people with suspected links to the PKK as a "counterterror" operation.

The PKK, a militant group that has long fought for increased autonomy for Kurds in Turkey, is designated as a terror group not only by Turkey, but also by the US and the EU, among others.

However, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has twice ruled that the group received its EU designation without due process.

The Turkish government blames the PKK for nearly 40,000 deaths since the group launched an armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

However, both sides have been accused of atrocities since the start of the uprising.

Instrumentalizing arrests?

Pro-Kurdish lawmaker Tayip Temel of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) claimed that the operation was motivated by fears that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party could be defeated in the upcoming elections.

"On the eve of the election, out of fear of losing power, they have resorted to detention operations again," he wrote on Twitter.

He said tens of politicians, including top members of his party, journalists, artists and lawyers were among those detained in Diyarbakir on Tuesday morning.

In a statement on its website, the organization Reporters Without Borders says: "As the 2023 election approaches, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan 'hyper-presidency' has stepped up its attacks on journalists in a bid to deflect attention from the country's economic and democratic decline and to shore up its political base."

Erdogan and his AK Party have dominated the political landscape in Turkey since 2002.