The removed officials are suspected of ties with what the government considers terrorist organization, the Turkish Interior Ministry said Sunday.
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President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the campaign against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was Turkey’s largest ever and that the removal of civil servants linked to them was a key part of the fight. Co-mayor Fatma Yildiz, who was replaced Sunday morning, said the decision was “a blow against the will of the people”, Dogan reported.
Three of the 28 officials are members of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party; one belongs to the Nationalist Movement Party and the rest to pro-Kurdish parties.
Mayors from the AKP and MHP are accused of having links to Gulen movement, according to Turkish media.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who took over from his predecessor Efkan Ala earlier this month, said the USA embassy’s reaction was “unacceptable”.
The HDP mayors were elected by majority vote in the local elections in the Kurdish-majority Southeast of Turkey.
He said the mayors had been removed from their posts in line with the law, and denounced the American statement as “interference in Turkey’s domestic affairs”.
The secular main opposition Republican People’s Party, which supported Erdogan in the coup attempt but not his subsequent emergency declaration, also registered its displeasure, calling it a “coup” against the Grand National Assembly, the newspaper said.
The HDP condemned the appointments as a “coup by trustees” that was reminiscent of the military takeover of 1980 and “ignored the will of the voters”.
“The Kurdish problem will become even harder to solve. the people will not yield to this mentality”, it said, calling on the government to stop “taking advantage” of the failed coup.
“Being elected does not grant a right to commit a crime”, he wrote on Twitter. Security forces took up positions outside the affected municipal offices.
Four people, including a deputy mayor, were briefly detained in a minor skirmish outside city hall in the southeastern province of Hakkari.
The move led to protests that police later dispersed using water cannons and tear gas.
At least 13 PKK terrorists were killed in airstrikes carried out by Turkish jets in northern Iraq, the military announced Sunday.
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The air strikes came a day after suspected PKK militants detonated a auto bomb near local government offices in the city of Van further north, wounding 50 people including four police officers and four Iranian citizens. Turkey has vowed to support the Syrian Turkmen and Erdogan on Tuesday criticized Russian actions in the Turkmen regions, saying there were no Islamic State group fighters in the area.
