Clashes have broken out in parts of south-eastern Turkey after 28 elected mayors in largely Kurdish towns were removed from office.
Advertisement
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.
The Turkish military said on Wednesday that 186 PKK members had been killed in the operations conducted in the southeastern district of Cukurca over the past few days. The reclusive cleric denies charges of masterminding the coup.
The move is the most important step by new interior minister Suleyman Soylu since he was appointed in a surprise cabinet reshuffle earlier this month.
He said the Feto group was behind the July 15 attempted coup and the PKK/Democratic Union Party in Syria would be stopped like the PKK in Turkey.
“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.
There were also disturbances in the main regional city of Diyarbarkir and in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, where police entered the municipality building and unfurled a large red Turkish flag, taking down the white local government flags that had previously flown. The interior ministry said 12 of the mayors suspended were already under arrest. Co-mayor Fatma Yildiz, who was replaced on Sunday morning, said the decision was “a blow against the will of the people”, Dogan reported.
There were scuffles between protesters and police outside the town hall in Hakkari and also in Suruc in the Sanliurfa region where dozens were killed previous year in an IS suicide bombing, Dogan said. Police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse the crowd.
“We hope that any appointment of trustees will be temporary and that local citizens will soon be permitted to choose new local officials in accordance with Turkish law”, the embassy said.
Critics have accused the government of using the state of emergency to impose a draconian crackdown that has eroded freedom of expression in Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Nobel-winning writer Orhan Pamuk has said Turkey is becoming a “regime of terror”.
The government argues however that the emergency measures are essential with the country shaken by the coup and battling the PKK insurgency in the southeast.
Three of the 28 officials belong to the ruling Justice and Development Party, one to the Nationalist Movement Party and the rest to the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party, or HDP.
It said the mayors in the mainly Kurdish cities had been elected on high turnouts and their dismissal would only amplify tensions in the region.
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.
