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Turkey: Troops given immunity for war crimes against Kurds

THE Turkish parliament passed a law on Thursday night granting impunity from prosecution to troops involved in the brutal crackdown on Kurdish cities.

Before becoming president in 2014, Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent much of his tenure as prime minister building up civilian oversight of the military.

But the new law will make it difficult or impossible to prosecute war crimes committed during the year-long offensive against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in south-eastern Turkey, which has claimed thousands of lives.

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