Photo: AFP
ANKARA,— Turkish authorities have detained five Germans over alleged links to Kurdish PKK militants, pro-Kurdish media reported.
The suspects were taken into custody on charges of spreading propaganda, the pro-Kurdish news agency Mezopotamya said late Friday, and of belonging to an illegal organisation which was not named but is likely the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
The five, who were detained this week, were being held in Ankara, the agency said.
It said the arrests were part of an investigation by the Ankara public prosecutor. His office would, however, not confirm the report when contacted by AFP.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
The German foreign ministry meanwhile would only say that it was “aware of the cases” and that the embassy in Ankara was providing consular assistance.
The German interior ministry denied claims that information leading to the detention of the five was handed over to Turkish authorities during Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s visit to Ankara this week.
However, a ministry spokesman would not rule out that such information could have been exchanged “as part of the routine cooperation between our security services”.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu in March this year threatened to detain individuals who came to Turkey if they were involved with the PKK and other groups.
“We have now taken measures against those who take part in the terror organisation’s meetings in Europe, Germany and then come to Antalya, Bodrum, Mugla for a holiday.
“Let them enter the airports. They will be detained,” he said.
The PKK is considered to be a terror group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. In 2008 EU court ruling overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union’s terror list.
However, Russia, Switzerland, India, China and the United Nations do not list the PKK as a terrorist organization.
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