ANKARA
It is the Turkish government’s duty to unite the children, reportedly kidnapped by a terrorist organization, with their families, said Turkey’s Justice Minister on Thursday.
Bekir Bozdag said plans are in place to bring back the children, reportedly kidnapped on April 23 by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known by the acronym PKK.
In municipality training camps, the children are being manipulated into going to the mountains to fight, according to families and civil rights societies. The exact number of children taken to the mountains is unknown.
Bozdag spoke to reporters about Turkey’s ‘solution process’, which began early last year with a ceasefire between the Turkish government and PKK terrorist organization. He said the termination of terrorism is important for Turkey and that the ‘solution process’ is a historic step forward in this regard.
The government pledged democratic reforms to empower minorities, particularly the Kurdish minority, which is by far the largest, forming 18 percent of the population.
"The absence of a conflict environment based on terrorism over the past year is an extremely important development," Bozdag told reporters after the 43rd Ordinary Congress of the Union of Notaries in the capital Ankara on Thursday.
‘’We know that Turkey will experience a period where terror will drop its weapons and be out of Turkey’s agenda,’’ Bozdag said.
Families of the kidnapped children and civil society representatives staged sit-ins in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, last week.
"For the first time in front of the public, families loudly took up a position against the terror organization and wanted their children returned to them," Bozdag said. ‘’I think this is a gain arisen from the solution process," he added.
Police arrest women over alleged PKK child plot
Two women were detained during a security operation at a house in the Yuksekova district of Turkey's southeastern Hakkari province over alleged attempts to send children to the outlawed PKK rebel group.
Three girls aged under 18 were found during the operation which was aimed at those 'who provide members to PKK', police claimed.
Families have been highly concerned and holding sit-in protests in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir since the Kurdish separatist group reportedly kidnapped an unknown number of teenagers on 23 April, when Turkey celebrated its National Children's Day.
The incidents have threatened to destabilize a delicate "solution process" to end armed conflict and address the issues of minorities -- particularly those of the Kurdish minority -- which is by far Turkey’s largest ethnic group, accounting for some 18 percent of the population.
Meanwhile, a district police department has said that a 13-year old child who surrendered to security forces in the Beytussebap district in Sirnak, claimed to have been abducted by the PKK two months ago. The full name and gender of the child have been withheld.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party and Peoples' Democracy Party for not being "sincere" over the story of allegedly kidnapped children in Diyarbakir province.
"If the BDP and HDP are sincere, and whoever else wants to contribute to the solution process, they should do their best to bring those kids down from the mountains. Otherwise, the state of Turkey has its own procedures to apply to bring those teenagers back to their families," Erdogan said on Tuesday.
www.aa.com.tr/en
