Turkey targets Kurdish exile group

ANKARA, Turkey, April 22 (UPI) -- Turkish prosecutors say they've opened legal proceedings in Ankara against 31 members of an alleged political front group for banned Kurdish separatists.

Officials say the Kurdish Parliament in Exile, which has allegedly held meetings in The Hague, Vienna, Moscow, Copenhagen, Rome, Oslo and Brussels, is a front for the outlawed separatist group the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors say the first hearing against the Kurdish Parliament in Exile will be held April 28. They contend it is one of several front groups in a network of organizations connected to the PKK and its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The newspaper said the group was established in 1995 in The Hague under the leadership of Yasar Kaya, former chairman of the Democracy Party, which had been banned the year before.

"The so-called parliament, since its establishment in accordance with the orders of terrorist leader Ocalan, became the diplomatic spokesperson of the PKK," the indictment reads. "It was used to mask the terrorist facilities of the PKK and was an important tool for gathering international support for it."