602 people killed in clashes after Parliamentary elections in Turkey

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. The Human Rights Association (İHD) has announced that a number of 602 people have lost their lives due to the clashes between security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as well as terrorist attacks in the past five months.

In a press conference in Ankara on Thursday, the İHD President Öztürk Türkdoğan shared the details of a report prepared by the organization, which says that 150 security officials, 271 civilians and 181 PKK terrorists were killed between June 7 and November 9.”Armenpress” informs about this, citingtodayszaman.comwebsite.

Ever since a suicide bombing in Suruç, Şanlıurfa province, killed 33 activists and injured 100 more on July 20, clashes involving the PKK have grown in number. Two police officers were executed by PKK members on July 22 in retaliation for the Turkish authorities' perceived failure to prevent the Suruç attack. The violence and PKK-led attacks further escalated when Turkey carried out airstrikes on PKK bases in neighboring northern Iraq.

Besides the violence erupted as clashes between security officials and the PKK in the south-eastern provinces, twin suicide attacks killed 101 people in Ankara on Oct. 10, in the deadliest attack in the history of Turkey believed to be perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Violence has engulfed Diyarbakır's Silvan district, where six civilians and a solider have been killed during a curfew that has been in place due to ongoing clashes between the PKK and security officials since Nov. 2.

Türkdoğan maintained that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) should draft a new constitution in order to address democratic and human rights issues in Turkey.

The AK Party swept back to single-party rule at a snap election on Nov. 1, taking 317 of the 550 seats in parliament, just shy of the 330 seats required to hold a referendum on changing the constitution.

"The Nov. 1 election ushered in four years of stability and confidence. Let's make this period a time of reforms, prioritizing a new constitution," Erdoğan said at a commemoration ceremony for Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, on Tuesday.