Turkey Jails Kurdish Party Leaders As Attack Kills 9

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 04th Nov, 2016 ) - Turkey on Friday jailed the two co-leaders of the country's main pro-Kurdish party and several other MPs, in an unprecedented crackdown as a deadly bombing killed nine in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

A court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir remanded in custody Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag after they were detained along with 10 of its MPs, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Including Demirtas and Yuksekdag, seven HDP MPs have so far been placed under arrest by the courts pending trial. The United States and European Union both raised alarm over the arrests, which marked a new escalation of the clampdown under the state of emergency imposed in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt.

Hours earlier, a blast blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) struck outside a police station nearby in the Baglar district of Diyarbakir, Turkey's main majority-Kurdish city.

Eight people were killed, including two police, and over 100 were wounded, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced, saying the PKK had again showed its "ugly face".

Anadolu said another civilian later died of their wounds. With tensions again escalating in Turkey nearly four months after July's failed coup, authorities slapped restrictions on social media including messaging services like WhatsApp.

Yildirim confirmed the move, saying such measures were imposed from "time to time" as a precaution and would be lifted once the danger had passed. The turbulence also battered the Turkish lira. It was trading at 3.17 to the Dollar, a new historic low and a loss in value of nearly two percent on the day.