He added that the country was “determined to end the PKK plague” in southeast Turkey and said the Fetullah Terror Organization (FETO) behind the July 15 attempted coup and the PKK/PYD in Syria would face the same fate as the PKK in Turkey.
Advertisement
In the latest violence, suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants set off a auto bomb on Monday near government offices in the city of Van, wounding scores of people.
The mayors were suspended from their posts over the past month on suspicion of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has been waged a deadly insurgency in the southeast since 1984, an interior ministry statement said.
When local governments “come under the influence of terrorist organizations, it is the state’s primary duty to take precautions against those who have usurped the people’s will”, the statement said.
“No democratic state can or will allow mayors and MPs to use municipality resources to finance terrorist organisations”, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter following the sacking. A delegation of senior party members spoke to reporters in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, where they called the appointments unlawful and said they would be taking the decision to Turkey’s constitutional court.
“This illegal and arbitrary stance will result in the deepening of current problems in Kurdish cities, and the Kurdish issue becoming unresolvable”, it said in a statement.
“These attacks, which have the clear objective of disrupting Turkey’s Syria operation, are still ongoing”, Erdogan said in a message to mark the Muslim Eid al Adha holiday.
“Like the Gulen movement, the PKK can not possibly withstand the power of the people and the strength of the state”, he said.
Security forces in Hakkari prevented HDP co-mayors Fatma Yildiz and Saban Alkan from entering the municipality building following Sunday’s assignments, which led to protests outside the municipality building.
“There is no difference between the mentality that bombards the Parliament, the elected public will, and the mentality that storms into the municipalities shouting to have “seized power”, in an usurpation of the local public will”, the HDP said, referring to municipalities in the Kurdish areas southeastern Turkey.
Advertisement
Four towns in Van province were affected by the removals.
