ANKARA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) — Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Sunday that a top member of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) was arrested in the Turkish largest city of Istanbul.
“A top member of the terrorist organization PKK, whom I cannot identify right now, has been caught in Istanbul,” Arinc was quoted as saying by the semi-official Anatolia news agency.
Arinc said that Turkish security forces had been successful in all their operations against the PKK.
The deputy prime minister said the fact that the PKK was receiving support from foreign countries made the fight against the PKK difficult, adding, “we need foreign support and measures that will cut the terrorist organization’s sources in order to succeed in our fight.”
Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK during the past over two decades.
via PKK top member arrested in Istanbul: deputy PM.
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