Merkel Slams Turkey Over Crackdown on Kurds

Many developments in Turkey regarding the Kurdish population is a cause of great concern in Germany, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Merkel’s words come ahead of her visit to Turkey which will begin Monday.

"Of course, some developments in Turkey cause us great concern… The process of rapprochement and reconciliation with the Kurds was cancelled in the past year," Merkel said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper in an interview on Sunday.

Merkel reminded that Germany considered the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to be a terrorist group, but wanted the "Kurdish population to have its equal place and a good future in Turkey"

She also said that she met with "great concern" the Turkish parliament’s decision to strip lawmakers of diplomatic immunity, made last week, as it would "with serious consequences" for Kurdish politicians.

Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 as fighting between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army resumed. Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews in Kurdish-populated towns, preventing civilians from fleeing the regions where the military operations are underway.

Earlier this week, a total of 376 lawmakers in the 550-seat Turkish legislature voted to pass a bill that seeks to make it easier to strip members of the parliament of immunity. Opposition argued this would allow the government to prosecute dissidents on invented terror-related charges.