EU hopes jailed Kurdish leader will be freed 'shortly'

"We hope he will be released shortly," the EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini told a news conference in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. 

Demirtas, one of two former co-leaders of the leftist Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was arrested in November 2016 over his alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The charismatic 45-year-old, dubbed the Kurdish Obama, is charged with a string of offences, including terrorist propaganda, for which he faces up to 142 years' imprisonment.

He denies all the charges and claims the case against him is politically motivated.

The HDP is the second main opposition party in Turkey with 67 MPs and became the first pro-Kurdish party to enter parliament in June 2015.

Over a dozen lawmakers had been detained in 2016 and 2017 over alleged links to the PKK, in what supporters say is punishment for daring to oppose Erdogan.

The Turkish government accuses the HDP of merely being the political wing of the PKK, which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984. The HDP denies this.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terror organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.

Since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015, violence has resumed and Ankara has conducted several military operations against the PKK.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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