Turkey on Thursday prevented a delegation of deputies from the main pro-Kurdish party from entering a south-eastern city that has been under army curfew for a week, as alarm mounted over a humanitarian crisis. Interior Minister Selami Altinok said the deputies from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) would not be allowed into Cizre for their own security.
The government says it has launched a military operation in Cizre, a city of 120,000 close to the borders with Syria and Iraq, and imposed a curfew to eliminate Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants after a string of attacks inside Turkey. The HDP however says that 21 civilians, including children, have been killed in the operation and a humanitarian crisis is worsening by the day.
HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas has been leading fellow deputies and dozens of supporters on a march to Cizre to end the curfew and draw attention to the plight of its residents. Also part of the group are Turkey's EU Affairs Minister Ali Haydar Konca and Development Minister Muslum Dogan - HDP MPs who joined the caretaker government ahead of snap elections due on November 1. But security forces in full riot gear and brandishing shields Thursday stopped them outside Idil, a town several dozen kilometres (miles) west of Cizre, an AFP correspondent said.
"We will not allow them to go to Cizre," Altinok told reporters in Ankara. "It is our duty to protect them." Anltinok said 30-32 members of the PKK had been killed by the armed forces in the Cizre military operation. He said that 800 kilogrammes (1,760 pounds) of explosives had been destroyed, 10 suspected PKK members arrested and caches of arms seized. He added that one civilian had been killed in clashes. Altinok said that the curfew, which is now in its seventh day, would continue for as long as necessary and insisted it was in line with the law.