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Turkish polls 'becoming impossible' due to unrest: head of pro-Kurdish party
Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), talks during a news conference in Diyarbakir, Turkey, September 9, 2015. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Sertac Kayar
09/09/2015
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A deteriorating security situation in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast where a ceasefire between government forces and Kurdish insurgents has broken down, will make it difficult to hold an election planned for November, the head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) said on Wednesday.
Turkey's southeast has seen almost daily clashes between militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and security forces since July. Tensions have been further exacerbated by confrontation with Islamic State militants blamed for a bomb attack in that month that killed 30 people.
The conflict, weeks before polls the ruling AK Party hopes will restore its majority, has shattered a peace process begun by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2012 to end an insurgency that has killed more than 40,000 people over three decades.
"It is becoming impossible to hold an election given the security situation in the region," Selahattin Demirtas told a news conference in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.
"We want an election to be held and we are not saying an election can't be held, but we want the conditions in the region to be improved for an election," he added.
More than 100 members of Turkish security forces have been killed since the conflict resumed in July, based on information from government officials and security sources. Some 2,000 PKK militants have been killed, Erdogan said on Sunday.
The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union, launched its separatist insurgency in 1984.
(Reporting by Seyhmus Cakan and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan; editing by Ralph Boulton)
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