Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants, triggering pockets of protest in its volatile southeastern region bordering Syria and Iraq.
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Turkey’s government replaced 28 mayors, whom the Interior Ministry accuses of terrorist ties, with trustees, sparking demonstrations and global concern.
Erdogan said Turkey was now “much stronger, determined and more dynamic” than before the July 15 coup bid, which the authorities blame on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Tens of thousands of people have been purged from government jobs since the coup, accused of links to terrorist organisations.
The ministry said in a statement that 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”.
Parliament member Sebahat Tuncel, a Kurd, said Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party had started “a war against Kurds”, and said the government has no evidence the mayors, some of whom were elected by overwhelming majorities, had any ties to terrorism.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose regional politicians were among the chief targets of the move, denounced the removal of the mayors as a “coup”.
“Ignoring the voters’ will, rendering local administrations ineffective, this unlawful regulation is null and void for us”, the HDP said. It said wouldn’t recognize the appointments which were violating the Turkish constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.
“This illegal and arbitrary stance will result in the deepening of current problems in Kurdish cities, and the Kurdish issue becoming unresolvable”.
Marking the Muslim Eid al Adha holiday on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, had been trying to step up its attacks since a failed coup attempt in July.
“Like the Gulen movement, the PKK can not possibly withstand the power of the people and the strength of the state”, Erdogan said in a video statement. Security forces have taken up positions outside the affected municipal offices.
Some 200 people were dispersed by tear gas and water cannon after gathering outside the city hall in Suruc, the private Dogan news agency reports.
Turkish warplanes killed at least three PKK terrorists in an airstrike operation carried out in the Şemdinli district of the southeastern Hakkari province on Tuesday.
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Meanwhile, the interior ministry said in a statement that the 28 sacked mayors – 12 of whom have been arrested – were facing a probe over suspected “assistance and support” to the Kurdish militants and to Gulen’s organisation.
