PKK planning attacks on medical staff

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has recently stepped up its violence on civilians and kidnapped 12 teachers in the southeastern provinces has chosen medical staff as its new target, intelligence reports have shown.   According to a PKK plan which was discovered by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), PKK members have plans to kidnap medical personnel working in Southeast, mainly in Bingöl. The MİT has alerted the gendarmerie and police teams in the region about the PKK’s plans. Security measures have been tightened in the area while medical staff have been told not to go to rural areas alone. The PKK kidnapped 12 teachers in Diyarbakır and Elazığ in September allegedly to draw attention to the Kurds’ demands for education in Kurdish. The PKK, which has been branded a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to fight for Kurdish autonomy. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict. Source todaysAmN