Pro-PKK opposition party leaders arrested in terror probe

Turkish opposition People's Democratic Party's (HDP) co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ were arrested by the court after an interrogation as part of the terrorism probe.

The Diyarbakır Second High Criminal Court, where the PMs were testified under a counter terrorism investigation, sent them to jail.

Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ were among around a dozen of the party's MPs detained early Friday over terror related investigations.

The HDP's parliamentary group leader İdris Balukan, another detainee, was sent to jail by a court earlier on the day.

The court also freed three deputies including Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Ziya Pir after testifying them.

Turkish interior ministry said the HDP deputies along with the party co-chairs Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ were detained early Friday for failing to answer a counter-terrorism investigation summons by Turkish prosecutors.

Yüksekdağ and Demirtaş, who vowed in June not to testify, as well as Önder, were referred to a court in Diyarbakir for a judge to assess the prosecution case.

Prosecutors have demanded all the suspects be remanded in custody pending trial. The deputies face prosecution under anti-terrorism laws after their parliamentary immunity was lifted earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Leyla Birlik and Nursel Aydoğan of the detained HDP deputies, were also arrested formally by the Şırnak Criminal Judge.

“Detention of HDP lawmakers is part of the legal process," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım told reporters in Ankara.

“They [HDP MPs] were detained because they refused to give testimony," Yıldırım told reporters in Ankara, adding the process was a legal requirement.

The HDP has come under fire for its close links to the PKK. Members of the party, who have so far declined to call the PKK a "terrorist group," attended the PKK militants' funerals, two of whom were the suicide bombers that killed tens of civilians in multiple bombings in Ankara.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU and resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015, after breaking a ceasefire agreement with Ankara that had been in force for roughly two years.

Since then, PKK terrorist attacks have killed more than 600 security personnel and claimed the lives of many civilians, including women and children, while more than 7,000 PKK terrorists were killed in army operations.