Business owners in Turkey’s s.eastern Sur district protest HDP deputies, shout ‘Get out of here’

A group of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputies were protested on Sunday during their visits to businesses at the Sur district of Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakır province.

HDP Deputy Chairman İdris Balüken and accompanying HDP deputies, including Nursel Aydoğan and Sibel Yiğitalp, paid a visit to the neighborhoods in the area for which the previously imposed curfews were lifted as of Sunday.

During the visit, a group of shopkeepers on Hz. Süleyman Street protested the HDP deputies, booing them.

"Why do you come here? Go away from here," they shouted.

Meanwhile, the police intervened before the tensions escalated.

The curfew was imposed in five neighborhoods of Sur for security of citizens during operations launched by the security forces on Dec 2, 2015 to eliminate barricades, ditches, and implanted explosive devices by the PKK terrorists. On Sunday, the curfew was lifted in 15 streets of three neighborhoods, beginning at 8 a.m.

HDP has been criticized for its inability to disconnect its political stance from PKK terror organization.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU, resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July, since when more than 430 members of the security forces have also been killed.

Turkish security officers have killed more than 4500 PKK terrorists since the launch of anti-terror operations on July 22, 2015, military sources said on May 11.

The number of killed terrorists include those killed in Turkey and also during the operations launched against the group in its northern Iraq camps.

The sources added that 695 were captured wounded, in addition to 716 others captured and 641 who surrendered to the security forces.

Ankara has stated its determined stance against PKK terror organization, vowing to continue operations until all the terror threats are cleared off.