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Kurdish MPs and thousands of prisoners end hunger strike in Turkey
After 200 days of protest, several Kurdish lawmakers and thousands of prison inmates in Turkey have ended their hunger strike, following the call from jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan. The call was made after Ankara let Ocalan meet his lawyers this month for the first time since 2011, triggering speculation about possible new efforts to end conflict in the mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. Pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Leyla Guven began a hunger strike in November in a bid to end Ocalan’s years of isolation. “Comrades who have committed themselves to hunger strikes and death fasts, I expect you to end your protest,” Ocalan said in a statement read out by one of his lawyers at a news conference in Istanbul on Sunday morning. Ocalan has been held in an island prison since 1999 and is a key player for Kurdish HDP supporters to seek any peace process.
- The Euromed news are edited by the team of the Euro-Mediterranean Policies Department of the European Institute of the Mediterranean -