TRTWorld - World in Focus: PKK Overshadows Turkish Elections, 2015, May 12

Описание: TENSE ELECTION PERIOD
Turkey’s elections have witnessed highly tense political environments involving attacks by the militant Kurdistan Workers Party - known as the PKK - in the past. As the June 7 general elections draw closer, the number of violent incidents related to political tensions has started to rise. The PKK has been accused of having a large part in those incidents, particularly in the southeastern part of the country. The attacks are aimed at influencing the residents of the southeast to vote in favor of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party - or HDP - which strongly wishes to pass Turkey’s ten percent electoral threshold. The mainly Kurdish southeast is politically divided between the HDP and the governing Justice and Development Party.

INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ALARMING
Reports from Turkey’s intelligence agencies have said that attacks by the PKK may intensify in May as elections draw closer and that incidents with the purpose of pressuring the public and kidnappings will increase. Recent police reports suggest that 11 acts were carried out including armed attacks, an execution, kidnapping, road-blocking, hijacking, harassment and bombings in late April. In the attacks a village chief was executed in Siirt, three policemen were injured and one girl was kidnapped. The PKK is also accused of using harassing fire and gun attacks against security forces to create chaos. Security forces have been alerted by the Ministry of Interior and deployed to the southeast to prevent attacks by the PKK and its youth branch.

SIMILAR TO PAST
The Peace Process was launched in 2012 to end the conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK which has claimed over 40,000 lives. But, the disarmament part of the process was stalled by the armed unit of the PKK in May. This action of PKK did not come as surprise since similar methods were used by the militant group during election times in the past. PKK which had declared no attacks would be carried out in late 2010 and supposedly had extended this decision until general elections in 2011. However, PKK militants attacked soldiers in Diyarbakir in July 2011, killing 13 of them.

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