ANKARA
More than 1,300 people have been arrested in a recent wave of counter-terrorism operations across Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Wednesday.
In a parliamentary announcement, Arinc said 1,302 were detained in operations across 39 provinces targeting suspected supporters of Daesh, Kurdish and left-wing militants.
He said violent demonstrations had “increased seriously” since the June 7 general election the country had seen 42 protests and the killings of six soldiers and four police officers. Another 32 members of the security forces had been injured.
"1,302 people have been detained during the operations,” Arinc told lawmakers.
Focusing on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Arinc said the group - considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, the EU and U.S. - had killed 10 civilians, 17 soldiers, 10 police officers and five village guards over the past two years, when a cease-fire was put in place in an attempt to end a 30-year insurgency in Turkey’s southern and eastern provinces.
The PKK also targeted businesses and construction equipment in arson attacks and carried out extortion.
Mass arrests across Turkey since the July 20 Suruc bombing that killed 32 people have concentrated on those with suspected links to Daesh, the PKK and its umbrella group the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front (DHKP-C).
Turkey has also launched airstrikes against Daesh in Syria and PKK camps in northern Iraq.
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