Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting at the presidential palace in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015. Kurdish militants were once again blamed by the Turkish government for carrying out the attack.
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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.
“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.
The Interior Ministry said in its 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”.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who took over from his predecessor Efkan Ala earlier this month, said the U.S. embassy’s reaction was “unacceptable”.
The bombing came a day after Turkey appointed new administrators in 24 Kurdish-run municipalities, majority in the largely-Kurdish southeast, after removing their mayors over suspected militant links, triggering protests. All three provinces are in Turkey’s southeast, along its border with Syria and Iraq.
MORE than 50 people have been injured in a auto bomb attack outside the ruling party’s municipal headquarters in Turkey.
In a statement, the United States embassy in Ankara expressed concerns over the resulting clashes in the southeast between protesters and police after the mayors were suspended. “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 latter has been linked to the July 15 coup attempt.
A riot police officer stands guard in front of Sur municipality office, following the removal of the local mayor from office after he was deemed to support Kurdish militants, in Diyarbakir, Turkey, September 11, 2016.
In a message relayed by his brother, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan said the Kurdish conflict could end if the state was ready.
The HDP later for the first time passed a 10 percent electoral threshold to enter parliament as a bloc, becoming the third largest party in parliament and taking away the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) single-party rule for the first time in 13 years.
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“First of all, it wasn’t us who destroyed the process”.
