Turkey pro-Kurdish party warns of ‘civil war’ after nationalist rampage

The leader of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party warned Wednesday the country was being dragged into a “civil war” following a wave of attacks on its offices by nationalists outraged by Kurdish rebel killings of dozens of security force members. Tensions have risen sharply in the past few days, as the government presses a major military operation against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, and the rebels hit back with daily attacks against the army and police. Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), denounced what he described as two nights of government-backed “lynching” of the party.

They want to create a civil war and the last two days have been rehearsals for this.

HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas.

On Tuesday night, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Ankara and other cities to condemn the increasingly bloody PKK assaults in the east, where two attacks killed 29 soldiers and police between Sunday and Tuesday. The demonstrators took aim at the HDP, whom they accuse of collaborating with the PKK, torching the party’s headquarters in Ankara and also setting a branch office in the southern city of Alanya on fire. Turkish media said 93 people were detained in Istanbul alone over the attacks.

If you side with terrorism you will have to suffer the consequences.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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