ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--The Kurdistan Region Presidency expressed its concerns over the detention of the co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey and called on the Turkish government to release the "political detainees" of the party, read a statement they released on Friday afternoon.
The co-leaders of the HDP and other party lawmakers were detained early on Friday as part of what the Turkish government described as a counter-terrorism investigation.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news reported that Selahattin Demirtas was detained in his Diyarbakir home while Figen Yuksekdag was also detained in her home in Ankara for failing to respond to summons for testimony in a Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor Office probe.
Full statement from Kurdistan Region Presidency
We are concerned about the Turkish government’s decision to detain the two co-leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and a number of the lawmakers of the party.
It is feared that an action like this may further complicate the situation and deepen problems.
We hope that this problem will be resolved sooner than later, and the arrests and detention of members of the HDP brought to an end, because it does not serve the stability, the political coexistence and the social stability of Turkey.
