Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated the mayor’s alleged support for the PKK was the reason for their dismissal.
Advertisement
Turkey appointed new administrators in the 24 Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday, triggering pockets of protest in parts of the largely-Kurdish southeast. “The terrorist organisation has targetted our party building and the AK Party’s presence in the past”.
He added: “The HDP municipalities clearly finance terrorism”. An explosion hit the Beşyol region of the Turkish eastern province of Van on the morning of September 12, Doğan News Agency has reported.
“But the dynamic changed during Turkey’s most recent elections in June 2015, when the Kurds-liberal, conservative, and nationalist alike-coalesced around the Kurdish-nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)”, he said. “Being an elected official isn’t a license to commit crimes”.
The People’s Democratic Party called the mayoral substitutions a disregard of voters’ will and said they represented a violation of global law, Hurriyet reported.
A Turkish soldier on an armoured personnel carrier waves as they drive from the border back to their base in Karkamis on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, August 27, 2016.
“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”, it said. The group said at the news conference they would abandon their eight-day action after the visit took place.
In a televised message, Erdogan said it’s necessary to “render it [terrorists] unable to carry out activities in Turkey”.
To date, 12 of the removed mayors have been arrested, and the rest can be detained up to 30 days.
The autonomy-seeking group abandoned a two-year ceasefire in July, reigniting a conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives since 1984.
Advertisement
Eker pointed out that residents of the region had stopped believing in the members of the PKK terrorist organization “because the public wants peace and brotherhood”.
