European leaders condemn Turkey crackdown on Kurdish lawmakers
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Politicians and diplomats across the European Union (EU) countries condemned and expressed concern over Turkey’s detention of at least 11 Kurdish lawmakers on Friday.
An online statement by the EU High Representative and Vice-President Federica Mogherini and Commissioner Johannes Hahn read the Union was “gravely concerned” about the detention of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) members.
Mogherini and Hahn said the arrest of Kurdish politicians including “our trusted and valued interlocutors” HDP Co-chairs Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas compromised parliamentary democracy in Turkey.
The detention of democratically elected representatives “exacerbated the already very tense situation in the South East of the country, for which there can only be a political solution,” added the EU officials.
Mogherini also separately tweeted she was “extremely worried” over the arrests of Demirtas and other HDP MPs, adding she was in contact with Turkish authorities and called EU ambassadors who were meeting in Ankara.
The President of the European Parliament (EP) Martin Schulz said the detention of MPs of the third largest party in the Turkish Parliament sent “a chilling signal” about the state of political pluralism in Turkey.
“With this last high-profile string of detentions, Turkish authorities are not just pushing Turkey further away from democracy, but they are also turning their backs on the values, principles, norms and rules underpinning EU-Turkey relations,” read Schulz’s statement.
“In our last meeting at the end of September, [Demirtas] already feared he would be next on the line to be detained,” noted the EP President as reported by Kurdistan24.
Moreover, the German Foreign Ministry said a Turkish government representative in Berlin had been summoned following the arrest of Kurdish politicians.
The Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier saw the arrests of HDP lawmakers as a “drastic intensification of the situation” in Turkey, reported Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.
Kristian Jensen, Denmark’s Foreign Minister, tweeted he had summoned the Turkish Ambassador to Copenhagen in light of the arrest of Kurdish MPs.
Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström released a statement on the ministry’s website calling the detentions of Kurdish MPs “extremely worrying.”
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany