Turkey detains nearly 300 people in raids on PKK suspects, including opposition figures

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained 282 suspects accused of ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, militant group, the government said on Tuesday, among them journalists, politicians, and academics.

The raids of the last five days took place as Turkey continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties.

The crackdown is coinciding with some signs that there could be an end to a 40-year conflict between the PKK and authorities.

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to make a statement as soon as this month on such efforts, four months after an ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to call on the militants to lay down their arms.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has waged an insurgency against the state since 1984, in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000.

Those detained included members of the Peoples' Democratic Congress, or HDK, as well as its allied smaller leftist parties, academics and a prominent LGBTQ rights activist.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party condemned the detentions, saying that both the removal of elected mayors and the latest arrests were aimed at "ending hopes for peace in the region".

"(The) Kurdish people's efforts for peace are being sabotaged by trustees and operations," DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said in a speech to his party's MPs in parliament. Trustees are the state officials appointed to replace ousted mayors.

The Journalists' Union of Turkey also criticised the detention of three journalists. "We do not accept that they are detained through house raids instead of being summoned to the police station," it said in a statement.

Police carried out counter-terrorism raids in 51 provinces, including the capital Ankara and the largest city, Istanbul. Yerlikaya said the suspects were accused of conducting PKK propaganda, providing financing for the group, recruiting members, and joining street protests.

Police seized two AK-47 rifles among other weapons, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

On Saturday, Turkey removed a DEM mayor in the eastern province of Van over a terrorism-related conviction handed down earlier this month, bringing the total of dismissed DEM mayors to eight since the 2024 elections.

(Reporting by Daren Butler, Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Frances Kerry)