Turkish PM calls on HDP to free children abducted by PKK

PM Erdoğan says the HDP should take role in getting back kidnapped children from the outlawed PKK or the government will launch alternative plans to the ongoing peace process Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has delivered an ultimatum-like statement to the pro-Kurdish party represented at Parliament, saying it should work for the release of a group of children abducted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or the government will take its own action for their release.

“I whole-heartedly greet those mothers and fathers who are now demonstrating in front of the Diyarbakır Municipality for their children who have been kidnapped in the mountains,” Erdoğan said on May 27, addressing a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

He was referring to a group of families who on May 20 began a sit-in protest in the mostly Kurdish-populated southeastern province of Diyarbakır, expressing their anger at the PKK, which allegedly kidnapped their children.

“Going to the mountains,” is a phrase used in Turkey to refer to those who join the PKK’s armed fight in mountainous areas. The outlawed group’s headquarters and military camps have been based in the Kandil Mountains, located along the Iranian border of Iraq, for nearly 20 years.

“Hey BDP, HDP, where are you?” Erdoğan said, calling out to the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), two sister-parties both represented at Parliament and sharing the same grassroots as the PKK.

“Well, sometimes you go, agree, take and bring back. Go and get the children of these mothers too,” he added, apparently referring to...