Turkish security forces killed more than 10 suspected Kurdish militants amid intensifying clashes in the country's south-east, while 44 people were arrested in Istanbul on suspicion of links with the rebels, officials and media reports said. The exact death toll from clashes in Silvan, a town in south-eastern Turkey's Diyarbakir province, was not immediately clear. A security source said it exceeded 10 people - all members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Turkey's crackdown on the PKK began in July after a 2 1/2-year-old cease-fire collapsed and has escalated ahead of a snap national election on November 1. More than 120 security personnel and hundreds of militants have been killed. Among those detained on Friday were district officials of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), a left-wing grouping accused of having links with the hard-line PKK, Hurriyet newspaper said. An HDP spokesman had no immediate information on the arrests, and there was also no comment from Turkish police.
The HDP on Friday presented its election platform in which it renewed a promise to seek a settlement to the 31-year war with the PKK. "Despite everything, we say peace," HDP Co-Chairwoman Figen Yuksekdag said. "We want a grand peace." HDP district officials have been detained in previous police raids in the predominantly Kurdish south-east.
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