January 29, 2016•Update: January 30, 2016
ISTANBUL
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused hunger-striking opposition lawmakers of acting like the “servants” of PKK terrorists.
Three Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies have been on hunger strike in the Interior Ministry building since Wednesday in a protest against the alleged lack of ambulances in Cizre, southeast Turkey, where a military curfew has been in place since mid-December.
Rejecting the claims, Erdogan told reporters: “They can hold a hunger strike or do any [kind of protest]. The place for all this is the parliament. The parliament is the venue for such [complaints]. They are currently acting like servants of the terrorist organization.”
Cizre is one of the towns at the center of counter-terrorism operations as security forces attempt to dislodge PKK terrorists.
Erdogan said ambulances are stationed in secure zones within 1,000 meters (1,100 yards) of the scene of fighting and claimed the terrorist organization PKK refused to take the injured to the ambulances, instead calling for medical teams to come into areas where they would be at risk.
“As you know, similar things happened before,” the president said. “An ambulance driver was martyred. Then a nurse and a doctor were wounded.”
Last September, an ambulance driver was killed and paramedics kidnapped while trying to help wounded security personnel during a terrorist attack in Sirnak, the province where Cizre is located.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu previously rejected the ambulance claims, saying that security forces and medical teams were striving to serve the local population despite the terrorist organization PKK shelling ambulances.
The PKK – also considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in late July 2015. Since then, more than 240 members of the security forces have been martyred.
Erdogan said an anticipated meeting with HDP deputy Leyla Zana would come with one condition - that she retake her parliamentary oath.
The veteran politician, who represents Agri province in eastern Turkey, altered part of the oath when she took it following November’s election and has since refused to retake it.
Last week she requested a meeting with Erdogan. “First of all, she needs to take her oath,” he said. “Unless she does that, such a meeting is out of the question.”
