Ankara-Sana
A woman was killed during an armed attack targeting an office of the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Izmir, western Turkey, today.
The Associated Press quoted the regional governor's office as saying that "a gunman entered the party office building in the western city of Izmir and fired shots before trying to set fire to the office, killing a woman from the party."
He explained that "the attacker, a former health worker, stormed the HDP office and shot the employee, Deniz Poyraz," noting that he had been arrested.
In a statement posted on its website, the HDP accused the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Interior Minister of targeting the party and inciting such attacks, and the statement said, "The mastermind and instigator of this brutal attack is the government of the Justice and Development Party, the Nationalist Movement Party and the Ministry of the Interior, which constantly targets our party and its members." .
The HDP, the second-largest opposition party in Turkey's parliament, controls 55 of the parliament's 600 seats, and the party faces a massive government crackdown in which thousands of pro-party activists have been jailed along with former lawmakers and leaders.
