He added that the country was “determined to end the PKK plague” in southeast Turkey and said the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) behind the July 15 attempted coup and the PKK/PYD in Syria would face the same fate as the PKK in Turkey.
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The interior ministry said the 28 mayors, 12 of whom are formally under arrest, were under investigation for providing “assistance and support” to the PKK and to Gulen’s organisation.
“Being elected does not grant a right to commit a crime”, he wrote on Twitter. “The resources created by the taxes honored by our citizens and the political will aroused by their votes can not be utilized for the benefit of terrorist organizations”.
The mayors of the cities of Batman and Hakkari in the southeast have also been replaced.
Turkey’s battle against the PKK resumed with a new intensity after a ceasefire collapsed previous year and with attempts by Kurdish groups in Syria’s war to carve out an autonomous Kurdish enclave on Turkey’s border.
The People’s Democratic Party called the mayoral substitutions a disregard of voters’ will and said they represented a violation of worldwide law, Hurriyet reported. The main pro-Kurdish opposition party called it an “administrative coup”. “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 letter said the group was particularly disturbed by the detention of novelist Ahmet Altan and his brother Mehmet Altan, an economics professor, who Turkey accused of transmitting subliminal messages to rally coup supporters on TV the night before the coup attempt.
The move was made within the three-month state of emergency imposed after July’s coup attempt. Previously, suspects could be held only 24 hours, or four days in special circumstances. Security forces took up positions outside the affected municipal offices.
Warrants were issued for dozens of journalists, and Amnesty International reported that, in official and unofficial holding centers in Istanbul and Ankara, there were reports of police officers raping military officers, beating soldiers and denying detainees food, water and lawyers.
Tens of thousands of people have been purged from government jobs since the coup, accused of links to terrorist organisations.
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He said the crackdown was being driven by “the most ferocious hatred”.
