Turkish Authorities Launch Investigation Against Pro-Kurdish MP Over Militant Links

 HDP's Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir
HDP's Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir
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Turkish Authorities Launch Investigation Against Pro-Kurdish MP Over Militant Links

 HDP's Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir
HDP's Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir

Turkish authorities are investigating a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) over suspected militant links, prosecutors said on Sunday, after a minister said the lawmaker had visited an area in northern Iraq where 13 Turks were killed.

President Tayyip Erdogan, his ruling AK Party and their ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) accuse the HDP of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the HDP denies.

The HDP has come under renewed pressure this week after the government said that fighters from the PKK had executed 13 Turkish captives in Iraq's Gara region, including military and police personnel. The PKK said the captives had died during clashes in the area.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told broadcaster A Haber on Saturday that the HDP's Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir had visited Gara, according to an account by someone he said was a PKK militant who had surrendered. Ankara says the PKK have several bases in Gara.

Prosecutors in Ankara said on Sunday that Soylu's comments were considered a notice and that an investigation had been launched into Tasdemir's links to an armed terrorist organization.

Tasdemir, in a tweet on Saturday, had denied Soylu's comments.

"This country's interior minister made a statement giving my name based on the so-called accounts of one person. We will prove that this is a giant lie and slander," she wrote.

Many prominent HDP members have been investigated, tried, and jailed over terrorism charges. Selahattin Demirtas, the party's former leader and one of Turkey's most prominent politicians, has been in jail for more than four years.

On Friday, Turkey's top appeals court approved a jail sentence against another HDP lawmaker on terrorism charges, potentially opening the way to revoking his parliamentary membership.

Turkey has carried out several cross-border operations into northern Iraq against the PKK, which has waged an insurgency in the mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984. It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and European Union.



Car Bombing Kills 13 Pakistani Soldiers Near Afghan Border

A Pakistani policeman keeps watch on a roadside during the month of Muharram, in Lahore, Pakistan, 27 June 2025. EPA/RAHAT DAR
A Pakistani policeman keeps watch on a roadside during the month of Muharram, in Lahore, Pakistan, 27 June 2025. EPA/RAHAT DAR
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Car Bombing Kills 13 Pakistani Soldiers Near Afghan Border

A Pakistani policeman keeps watch on a roadside during the month of Muharram, in Lahore, Pakistan, 27 June 2025. EPA/RAHAT DAR
A Pakistani policeman keeps watch on a roadside during the month of Muharram, in Lahore, Pakistan, 27 June 2025. EPA/RAHAT DAR

An explosive-laden car rammed into a Pakistani military convoy on Saturday in a town near the Afghan border, killing at least 13 soldiers, sources said.

Four Pakistani intelligence officials and a senior local administrator told Reuters that the convoy was attacked in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan district.

Around 10 other soldiers were wounded, some critically, and they were being airlifted to a military hospital, the sources said.

"It was huge, a big bang," said the local administrator, adding that residents of the town could see a large amount of smoke billowing from the scene from a great distance.

One resident said that the explosion rattled the windowpanes of nearby houses, and caused some roofs to collapse.

No one has so far claimed responsibility.

The Pakistani military did not respond to a Reuters request for a comment.

The lawless district which sits next to Afghanistan has long served as a safe haven for different militant groups, who operate on both sides of the border.

Islamabad says the militants run training camps in Afghanistan to launch attacks inside Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies, saying the militancy is Pakistan's domestic issue.

Pakistani Taliban also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of several militant groups, has long been waging a war against Pakistan in a bid to overthrow the government.

The Pakistani military, which has launched several offensives against the militants, has mostly been their prime target.