Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arınc has once more called on prisoners in Turkey, who have been on hunger strike for more than two months, to give up Today`s Zaman reported.
The hunger strike entered its 64th day on Wednesday, with hundreds of prisoners refusing food in dozens of prisons across Turkey, demanding an end to the alleged isolation of Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK's jailed chief, whom strikers say has been denied access to his lawyers, as well as the right to use Kurdish in courtrooms and the right to education in their mother tongue.
Arınc renewed his call for an end to the hunger strike on Wednesday, saying everybody now knows the issues they raised.
"I am insistently calling the hunger strikers to give up," the deputy prime minister said, adding that they should no more upset those who love and care for them.
"You are valuable to us... We have respect for the right to life of 75 million citizens [in this country]," Arınc further stated.
Earlier this month, Arınç said in a public statement that Turkey was expecting the hunger strikers to end their protest. The deputy prime minister also held a meeting on Sunday with pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş and Mardin independent deputy Ahmet Türk in an attempt to end the collective hunger strike.
The inmates, most of whom are facing charges of or have been convicted of membership in the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or its mother organization, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), are consuming sugared water and vitamins that will prolong their lives and the protest by weeks, but Turkey's main medical association has earlier warned that fatalities are possible from around 60 days into the hunger strike.