The Turkish Interior Ministry on Sunday announced that 735 people have been detained in operations targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its umbrella organization, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).
Sixty-one of the detainees were arrested and 226 were released. The remaining 448 are still under investigation according to Turkish media.
The ministry also issued an inventory of weapons that were seized during the operations including six assault weapons, 32 rifles, 19 guns and 20 kilograms of TNT.
Turkish authorities had conducted direct talks with jailed PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan for several years until a truce in effect collapsed in the summer of 2015. Since then, there have been clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces.
More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.
