Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish party officials

Turkish security forces have arrested scores of officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) over alleged links to Kurdish militants.

Counter-terror police teams staged nationwide raids on HDP offices, arresting 118 officials of the party, state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday.

The arrests of officials from the HDP, the second-largest opposition party in the Turkish parliament, came after an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium that left 38 people dead and 155 others wounded on Sunday.

Twenty HDP officials were arrested in Istanbul, including the party’s provincial head, and 18 were apprehended in the capital Ankara.

In the heavily-Kurdish-populated southern city of Adana, about 500 police officers, backed by armored vehicles and a helicopter, launched a vast operation to detain 25 HDP officials.

Over 50 people connected to HDP were also detained in the southern city of Mersin, and five in the northwestern province of Manisa.

The main leaders of HDP have already been jailed pending trial over alleged ties to the PKK militants.

Turkey accuses the HDP of being the political arm of the armed militant group.

In a related development, Turkish jets carried out airstrikes against what were said to be PKK bases in northern Iraq, flattening the militants' headquarters, its surrounding gun positions and shelters, according to an army statement.

SS