MARDIN, Turkey
A pro-Kurdish political party co-leader has called for an immediate halt to recent clashes between security forces and militants in order to pave way for peace and dialogue.
"Not tomorrow or next week but we want peace right now. The way to begin this is to silence the weapons," Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chairman Selahattin Demirtas said on Wednesday at an event in southeastern Mardin province.
"Weapons must be silenced without any ‘but’ and the channels for dialogue must be opened," Demirtas added.
He warned that weapons would top all voices "unless all parts of the country speak up for peace".
He also said that the HDP wanted Turkey to be a country "where there is no single gunshot, bomb, mine or fighter jets carrying bombs".
Demirtas had made a similar call on Saturday during which he urged the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to stop the violence and accept a cease-fire, while calling on the Turkish government to end the recently launched anti-terrorist operations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently filed two separate lawsuits against Demirtas for causing “moral damages”, slander and invectiveness. Demirtas was accused of not taking into account the public’s interest while criticizing and “violating President Erdogan’s personal rights”.
Since July 24, around 1,700 people have been detained in a wave of counter-terrorism raids, amid a spike in attacks targeting police and the army after a July 20 deadly suicide bombing in the southeastern Suruc district which killed 32 civilians.
Police have been carrying out nationwide anti-terror operations to apprehend suspected PKK, Daesh, and DHKP-C militants – all three are designated terrorist organizations in Turkey.
