Турция: Истанбул гори докато полицията се бори със застъпници на Кюрдистанската работническа партия

Violent clashes between pro-Kurdish protesters and police erupted in Istanbul on Sunday morning, following the arrest of 15 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Turkish capital, Saturday. Members of the PKK's youth wing, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDGH), threw Molotov cocktails at police who fired rounds of teargas and deployed water cannon. The exchange lasted approximately three and a half hours. The violence was preceded by police raids on 23 separate addresses in Istanbul, mainly in city's working class suburbs of Kucukcekmece and Bagcilar. As well as the 15 arrests, unlicensed guns, documents and digital material were seized at the addresses, according to police sources. The raids are part of a series of operations by the Turkish state in wake of the July 20 Suruc bombing. Since then over 1,700 people linked to the PKK, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP/C) have been arrested in actions across Turkey.