Kurdish activists declare hunger strike over jailed leader's fate

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, Hatip Dicle, co-chair of Democratic Society Congress (DTK), read out a declaration announcing that around 50 politicians and activists would begin an indefinite and irreversible hunger strike if Ocalan's wellbeing was not confirmed by 5 September.

"Obstructing a people and a movement and denying all requests to see [Ocalan] for 510 days, especially after the coup attempt, removes all possibilities of peace in the country," said Dicle, according to Deutsche Welle.

Ocalan, the co-founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is serving a life sentence for treason in an island prison near Istanbul.

He has been denied visitors since summer 2015, when a two-year truce with the Turkish state collapsed.

The last time anyone was able to see the Kurdish leader was 5 April 2015, said Dicle.

Some people shouted pro-PKK slogans during the gathering in Diyarbakir - a majority Kurdish city which is among the areas targeted in a military offensive last winter aimed at trying to flush the rebels out of Turkey's southeast.

A poster of Ocalan hung over a building in the city but was later removed on the orders of the police.

Last week, 11 police officers were killed and dozens wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck near a police building in the flashpoint town of Cizre, about 260 kilometres (160 miles) east of Diyarbakir.

Obstructing a people and a movement and denying all requests to see [Ocalan] for 510 days, especially after the coup attempt, removes all possibilities of peace in the country. - Hatip Dicle

The PKK said it carried out the attack in retaliation for Ocalan's "continued isolation" and lack of information about his welfare.

The PKK has kept up its assaults against Turkish security forces since the truce collapsed, particularly in the last weeks after an unsuccessful 15 July coup by rogue elements in the military sought to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The government has vowed to press on with the campaign to eradicate the PKK from eastern Turkey after a purge in the army for those responsible for carrying out the coup.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority.

It is proscribed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Agencies contributed to this report.