Turkey Jails leading Kurdish politician

A leading Kurdish politician has been jailed for making and "spreading terrorist propaganda" for militants fighting the Turkish state.

Selahattin Demirtas, a former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), will serve four years and eight months in jail, state media say.

He came third in June's presidential election while behind bars, where he has been since his arrest in 2016.

He denied all charges and human rights groups say the trial was political.

Demirtas faces dozens of charges for which he risks up to 142 years in jail if found guilty.

Who are Kurds?

Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.

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Where do they come from?

The Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia.

Today, they form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and language, even though they have no standard dialect. They also adhere to a number of different religions and creeds, although the majority are Sunni Muslims

Who are Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been a thorn in Turkey's side for decades. 

The group, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.

Fighting flared up again after a two-year-old ceasefire ended in July 2015.

Now the PKK is being targeted in a bigger Turkish security crackdown, following the botched July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by mutinous Turkish officers.

The PKK's struggle is also part of the turmoil in Iraq and Syria, where Turkey is trying to assert its influence on a battlefield with many rival forces.