ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey’s interior minister said Thursday that a pro-Kurdish delegation was banned from entering the tense Cizre district in southeastern Sirnak province which has been under curfew for a week, amid a deadly military operation against Kurdish rebels.
A delegation led by the co-leaders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, and including two ministers from the party and dozens of lawmakers, was stopped from entering Cizre on Thursday.
The state-run Anadolu Agency reported that the team was halted 28 kilometers from the Kurdish district. They had set out on foot after their convoy was stopped the day before.
“Because we think it might lead to different provocative incidents, it is out of the question for them to arrive at Cizre for their own safety,” Turkish Interior Minister Selami Altinok was quoted as saying by AA. “We will not let them,” he warned.
“Turkish security forces are conducting an anti-terror operation around the town to counter PKK attacks that were stepped up at the end of July,” AA said.
The government declared a curfew in Cizre, which lies close to the Syrian and Iraqi borders, last Friday.
Altinok said the curfew would be lifted as soon as the security operation is finished and Cizre has returned to normal. He did not way when that would be.
The minister claimed that 800 kilograms of explosives had been recovered during the operation and that seven PKK members and a civilian were killed and 10 rebels arrested, AA reported.
“The ammunition seized in the operation in Cizre proves once again how the operations are just and right,” Altinok said.
Also Thursday, the Turkish Army opened fire on truck drivers protesting the closure of the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing between Turkey and the Kurdistan region, used to cross into Cizre. Five of the demonstrators were wounded in the shooting, a Rudaw reporter said.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Today’s Zaman daily reported that residents coping with dire conditions in the closed-off district.
“Residents are living in dire conditions due to the constant gunfire and explosions that have destroyed many homes in the tense district of Cizre,” the newspaper said on its website.
“According to media reports, heavy weapons are being used in the ongoing fighting between security forces and PKK terrorists in Cizre, where many homes have been destroyed due to explosions. The number of casualties has been increasing day by day,” it added.
Turkey and the PKK have been locked in a three-decade conflict in which some 40,000 people have been killed. The conflict re-ignited in late July, after the PKK claimed responsibility for the killings of two Turkish policemen.
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