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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Turkey says releases last Syrian Kurdish detainees |
| 2014-10-21 |
| Turkey on Monday released the last group of Syrian Kurds who were being held on suspicion of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a local official said. "The last 95 people were advised to go to a tent city having reported their contact details," local official Fatih Ciftci told AFP. Turkey had detained almost 300 Kurds who crossed the border from the besieged Syrian town of Kobani on suspicion of having links with the PKK, Kurdish lawmakers said. The Syria-based Kurdish fighters of the People's Defence Units (YPG) battling ISIS fighters are affiliated to the PKK militants who have fought the Turkish authorities for the last three decades in an insurgency that has claimed 40,000 lives. "They were not placed under formal custody but kept under administrative surveillance as part of a routine security check," said Ciftci. "We presented them with two choices: either to go back, or be settled into a (refugee) camp," the official said, adding that the ones who preferred to stay in Turkey would be tracked by Turkish authorities. Almost 300 Syrian Kurds had been held by Turkey for the checks, with many held in a sports hall in the border town of Suruc under conditions that have appalled Kurdish activists. |
| Posted by:Steve White |