Turkey’s president says the dismissal of 28 elected municipal and district mayors in several predominantly Kurdish towns in the country’s east and southeast was overdue.
Advertisement
The US embassy said it was concerned by reports of clashes in the southeast and that while it supported Turkey’s right to combat terrorism, it was important to respect the right to peaceful protest.
Turkey should revive a peace process to end three-decades of conflict with Kurdish militants, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan said, in comments relayed by his brother on Monday. It said it did not recognize the legitimacy of the mayors’ removal.
The mayors have been replaced by Ankara-appointed deputy and district governors, who took up their new posts Sunday morning.
The Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, whose mayors were principally affected, condemned the move as “coup by trustees”.
A three-month state of emergency granted Erdogan sweeping powers, and a presidential decree stated suspects can be detained for as long as 30 days without charge, and the government can listen in on all conversations they have with their attorneys.
In a statement, it said the move was reminiscent of the military takeover of 1980 and “ignored the will of the voters”.
Thousands of people have died since a ceasefire and peace talks between the PKK and Turkish government broke down in July 2015.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said Turkey had a duty to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), adding that its operation inside Syria was a first step towards this goal.
“The government should immediately abandon this perilous step”, it said, “they should quit trying to take advantage of the recent coup attempt on July 15th”.
“It doesn’t undoubtedly comply with the law for those elected by the public vote to abuse the will of nation to commit crimes against the public”, the statement said.
No one had seen Ocalan since April 2016, when the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited Imrali, raising concern over his status following the failed coup attempt.
Advertisement
“This unlawful and arbitrary attitude will do nothing but intensify existing issues, causing the Kurdish issue to become unresolvable to further degrees”, it stressed. She expressed fear that more Kurds would lose their jobs amid Erdogan’s crackdown.
