Turkey: Families protesting YPG/PKK for over 100 days

By Nurten Aslan and Aziz Aslan

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AA) – It was 109 days ago when a woeful mother started a sit-in protest against the YPG/PKK terror group in southeastern Turkey and it later snowballed.

Dozens of families have been staging a sit-in protest in Diyarbakir against the YPG/PKK outside the provincial office of a Turkish opposition party, Peoples’ Democratic Party, long accused by the government of having links to the PKK.

The protest started on Sept. 3 after a mother, Fevziye Cetinkaya, said her 17-year-old son had been forcibly recruited by the YPG/PKK through members of the HDP.

Since then, the number of families in front of the building is growing as they demand the return of their children, who, they claim, were deceived or kidnapped by terrorists.

"I have been in agony for five years," said Saliha Edizer who traveled to Diyarbakir from Istanbul to join the protesting families.

"My son should have had a pencil in his hands, but they sent him to the mountains [PKK bases]. Bring my son back, I can not stand this anymore," she cried.

Songul Altintas is another protesting mother who said the terror group kidnapped her son five years ago.

"HDP says it defends Kurdish people. If that was the case, they would stand by us, listen to our problems and take care of us," she said.

The weeping mother said she will continue her protest until her son is brought back.

"All we want is to have our child back," she said.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the PKK's Syrian offshoot.

* Writing by Ali Murat Alhas