Kurdish militants warn of “violent conflict” if Turkish police given more powers

IZMIR, Turkey – A new government bill that would grant Turkish police greater powers in dealing with street protests amounts to a “declaration of war” against the Kurds, according to Kurdish militants.

The warning by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which called on Kurds to rise up against the proposed measures, comes after a wave of deadly protests in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, and as a shaky peace process between the insurgents and the Turkish state looked increasingly set to unravel.

On Wednesday, lawmakers from the ruling party submitted a bill to parliament called the homeland security reform, which would reportedly grant sweeping powers to the police.

While Ankara has been vague on what the new measures would entail, local media have reported that the bill, if enacted into law, would give police expanded powers that would range from expanded use of wiretapping, to the confiscation of property, to restricting access to defendants' case files.

“The state and the government should know that the new law is a declaration of war against the Kurds and that the Kurdish people, the forces of democracy and the Freedom Movement will resist,” the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), an umbrella political group set up by the PKK, said in a written statement.

The statement by the militants, who also refer to themselves as the “Freedom Movement” or “Kurdistan Freedom Movement”, was published by the PKK-linked Firat news agency.

“If the Turkish state does not want to initiate a period of violent conflict it must stop enacting these types of laws and must immediately take serious steps toward solving the Kurdish problem,” the militants said.

Fierce protests erupted in Kurdish areas last week over Ankara's failure to intervene in the mainly Kurdish Syrian border town of Kobane, under siege by Islamic State (ISIS). More than 30 people were killed in the kind of street violence not seen in Turkey since the 1990s at the height of the PKK insurgency. Some were killed in clashes between PKK supporters and rival Kurdish Islamist groups.

Turkish leaders have condemned the demonstrators as vandals and provocateurs who were using Kobane as an excuse to foment unrest, and have vowed to come down hard on the protests.

The government has rebuffed criticism the measures are undemocratic, saying they are about protecting people's personal rights and are in line with other European countries.

“Demonstrations are absolutely a right and will not be obstructed in any way. We will not introduce any measures that restrict the right to carry out peaceful demonstrations,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency Anadolu on Wednesday.

“However, if someone uses violence to destroy the right to live of another citizen - this includes setting fire to a municipal bus, an ambulance, throwing a molotov cocktail, covering up their identity with a mask, attempting to create an atmosphere of civil strife - friends, these will definitely not be tolerated,” Davutoglu said.

The fate of Kobane and the ensuing unrest among Turkey's Kurds has raised fears a two-year-old peace process could collapse and push the country back into a cycle of violence. Turkey has enjoyed a relative calm since jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called a ceasefire in March 2013 as part of that process, which aims to end 30 years of fighting that killed some 40,000 people.

Tensions escalated this week when Turkish warplanes were reported to have carried out air strikes on PKK targets in southeastern Turkey - the first time since the peace talks began – after the militants attacked a military outpost. The PKK accused Ankara of violating the ceasefire agreement and in Wednesday's statement it denied its fighters had fired first.

Ocalan has warned the peace process would end if Kobane was allowed to fall to ISIS militants and he gave a deadline of October 15 for the government to find a resolution to the stalled peace negotiations. Ocalan's comments, which were delivered through his brother, did not elaborate on what would happen if his demand was not met.

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