Prosecutor launches investigation on HDP lawmakers

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation against Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Dirayet Dilan Taşdemir on charges of being a member of an armed terrorist organization after Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu claimed that she visited northern Iraq's Gara region where 13 Turks were killed.

A statement from the prosecutor's office said on Feb. 21 that they accepted Soylu's statements as a notice for the investigation.

"After the program broadcast on a national television channel on Feb. 20, 2021, an investigation has been initiated over the statements made about Peoples' Democratic Party 27th Term Deputy Dirayet Dilan Taşdemir, who was reported to have visited the Gara region of Iraq, where PKK / KCK armed terrorist organization members are located and where the Turkish Armed Forces conducted a [military] operation, for being a member of an armed terrorist organization," the statement said.

A PKK member, who entered the group in 2017 and then surrendered to the state, confessed that Taşdemir was in the Gara region, Soylu stated on Feb. 20 speaking on nationwide TV channel A Haber.

The PKK member said that he got in a car in Gara with a person who is said to be Taşdemir, according to the minister.

Minister Soylu earlier had said at the parliament that a lawmaker visited the Gara region, but he did not name the MP at that time.

Refuting the claim of the interior minister, Taşdemir said, " The Minister of the Interior of this country made a statement giving my name, supposedly based on the expressions of a person. We'll show that it's a big lie and slander."

HDP Co-Chair Pervin Buldan said that all of the photos displayed by Soylu were photos from the period of the solution process.

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