DIYARBAKIR:Turkey yesterday replaced Kurdish mayors with state officials in three citiesand detained more than 400 people for suspected militant links, the InteriorMinistry said, a move likely to fuel tensions in the mainly Kurdish southeast.The ministry also said it had launched an operation with some 2,300 commandosagainst militant fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insoutheastern provinces.
The mayors ofthree major southeastern cities - Diyarbakir, Mardin and Van - are accused ofvarious crimes including membership of a terrorist organization and spreadingterrorist group propaganda, the ministry said in a statement. Riot police firedwater cannon on small groups of people protesting against the mayors' dismissalin central Diyarbakir, where police sealed off the municipality headquarterswith metal barriers, Reuters TV video showed. President Tayyip Erdogan hadwarned ahead of local elections in March of such a move against electedofficials if they were found to have had connections to the PKK.
"For thehealth of the investigations, they have been temporarily removed from theirposts as a precaution," the ministry said, referring to Diyarbakir MayorSelcuk Mizrakli, Mardin Mayor Ahmet Turk and Van Mayor Bedia Ozgokce Ertan.Police detained 418 people in 29 provinces in a related investigation targetingsuspects with links to the PKK, the ministry added. The pro-Kurdish Peoples'Democratic Party (HDP), to which the three mayors belong, said they had beendismissed "on an order based on lies and illegal justifications".
"This is anew and clear political coup. It is a clear and hostile stance against thepolitical will of the Kurdish people," the HDP executive board said in awritten statement. It said the three mayors had been elected with between 53%to 63% of the vote in their cities in March and called for support from otherpolitical parties. "This is not just the problem of the HDP and theKurdish people. It is the shared problem of all Turkey's peoples and alldemocratic forces," it added.
Opposition slamsdismissals
Veli Agbaba,deputy leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), wrote onTwitter that the dismissals were tantamount to fascism and a blow againstdemocracy, while Istanbul's CHP mayor Ekrem Imamoglu also slammed the move."Negating the will of the people is unacceptable," he wrote onTwitter.
Imamoglu himselfwas removed from office over irregularities shortly after coming to power inthe March election, but won a re-run election in June. More unusually, Turkey'sformer president Abdullah Gul and ex-prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, onceallies of Erdogan from his AK Party who have emerged as potential politicalopponents, said on Twitter the dismissals were out of line with democracy.
The removal ofthe mayors echoed the dismissal of dozens of mayors in 2016 over similaraccusations, part of a purge that began after a failed coup. Nearly 100 mayorsand thousands of party members were jailed in a crackdown that drew expressionsof concern from the United States and European Union. Erdogan warned before theMarch elections that HDP mayors could again be dismissed if they, like theirpredecessors, were deemed to have ties to militants.
Erdoganfrequently accuses the HDP of links to the PKK, which is designated a terroristgroup by Turkey, the EU and the United States. The HDP denies such links. ThePKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000people have been killed in the conflict. The Interior Ministry said recentoperations had led to PKK militant numbers falling to their lowest level in 30years, with the number of fighters in Turkey falling to some 600 from around1,800-2,000 in the past.
Announcing thenew operation against PKK militants, launched on Sunday in the provinces ofVan, Sirnak and Hakkari, the ministry published images showing security forcesfiring machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The security forces destroyed43 caves and shelters used by the PKK, the ministry said, adding thatoperations would continue until all militants in the areas were"neutralized". - Reuters