(AGI) Istanbul, Dec. 16 - The Turkish government is planning to implement security measures and extend the curfew in the country's southeastern provinces, as part of its operations against members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). According to reports on the website of the newspaper Cumhuriyet, the operations will be carried out by the police, anti-terror forces and the army. The latter in particular will take part in the missions carried out during the curfew. New police stations and checkpoints will be set up in the same area, useful both to counter the PKK and for more widespread control of the Syrian border. The government plan, reported by Cumhuriyet, will also aim to close all possible channels connecting the separatist PKK militants and their Syrian-Kurdish "cousins" of the PYD-YPG. Presented by government officials as a proposal based on "an established method", in reference to cooperation with the army in the governance of the curfew, the proposal was strongly criticised by the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), and the pro-Kurdish HDP, whose spokesmen said that such measures would only prevent civilians from accessing healthcare and schools. The plan comes after the decision to declare a curfew in the provinces of Cizre, Silopi and Sirnak. On Dec. 13 about 3000 teachers and doctors left the provinces involved en masse, before the actual start of the curfew. On Tuesday night, 15 female students were arrested by security forces in Sirnak and detained at the police station, having staged a protest march against the curfew. They were from a women's student dormitory. (AGI) . .
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