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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In the latest violence, suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants set off a vehicle bomb on Monday near government offices in the city of Van, wounding scores of people.
Of those replaced, 24 are suspected of ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, and four are thought to be linked to the Gulen movement allegedly responsible for the abortive coup which killed over 270 people. “Our government took this decision based on all of this evidence”.
The latest crackdown follows the massive removal and detention of people from Turkey’s military, judiciary, civil service and education, following the July 15 coup attempt, which all combined have surpassed 80,000.
The Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, whose mayors were principally affected, condemned the move as “coup by trustees”.
“It should have been taken sooner, and it was my advice to do so earlier”, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul after attending prayers to mark the Eid Al-Adha holiday. “If mayors and town councilors finance terrorism by transferring public funds allocated to them to serve the people., they lose their democratic legitimacy”.
“This unlawful and arbitrary attitude will do nothing but intensify existing issues, causing the Kurdish issue to become unresolvable to further degrees”, it stressed.
The move sparked demonstrations in Hakkari Province, where security forces forbade the city’s co-mayors from entering the municipal building, drawing several protesters to the building, according to Hurriyet, a daily newspaper.
Four people, including Deputy Mayor Mikayil Erdal and HDP district organisation head Asim Ozcan, were detained but released shortly after, newspaper said.
A cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russian Federation is set to begin at sunset in Syria amid mixed messages of commitment from various rebel factions but with verbal backing by President Bashar Assad’s government.
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The United Nations said on Friday the Syrian government had effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo was close to running out of fuel, making a successful truce even more urgent.
