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Turkey: 3 mayors in Kurdish majority southeast sacked over terrorism charges

The three from the pro-Kurdish DEM party were elected in local elections in March

Published: Mon 4 Nov 2024, 11:12 AM

Updated: Mon 4 Nov 2024, 2:20 PM

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  • AFP

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Ahmet Turk (centre), the removed mayor of Mardin, at a press conference in Istanbul on August 29, 2019. Photo: AFP

Ahmet Turk (centre), the removed mayor of Mardin, at a press conference in Istanbul on August 29, 2019. Photo: AFP

Turkey on Monday sacked three mayors facing terrorism charges in the Kurdish-majority southeast and replaced them with trustees.

The mayors in the cities of Mardin and Batman as well as Halfeti, a district in the Sanliurfa province, were removed from their positions, the interior ministry said.

The three from the pro-Kurdish DEM party were elected in local elections in March when opposition candidates won in numerous towns and cities across Turkey, including Istanbul.

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Ahmet Turk won the vote in Mardin, while Gulistan Sonuk was mayor of Batman and Mehmet Karayilan represented Halfeti.

The ministry referred to a range of terror-related investigations targeting the three from membership in an armed terror group to disseminating terror propaganda for the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK, which since 1984 has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that has killed thousands, is blacklisted as a terror organisation by Turkey and its Western allies.

Turk, a prominent Kurdish politician who was dismissed twice before, was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison on charges of PKK membership for his alleged involvement in 2014 protests for the city of Kobane in northeastern Syria.

In 2014, the then HDP party which is now called DEM, urged street protests to pressure the Turkish government to help save Kobane under the attack from the Islamic State.

Turk, who was replaced by the governor of Mardin, promised not to give up, in a message on X.

"We will not step back from the fight for democracy, peace and freedom. We will not allow usurption of the people's will!"

The Mardin governor's office banned protests in the city for 10 days.

Their dismissal comes days after another mayor from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) party was arrested for alleged links to the PKK in an Istanbul district and replaced with a governor.

Ahmet Ozer, 64, mayor of the Istanbul district of Esenyurt, was arrested on Wednesday with the government swiftly appointing a trustee to take his place.

Both the CHP and DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party which slammed his arrest as a "political coup", protested against what they said was the politically-motivated detention.

The dismissals come after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed full support for one of his political ally's attempts to reach out to Turkey's Kurds, describing it as a "window of opportunity".

The Turkish government has removed dozens of elected Kurdish mayors in the southeast and replaced them with its own trustees.

Six months ago, the election authority removed the DEM party's elected mayor in the eastern city of Van, sparking furious protests when he was replaced by the losing candidate from Erdogan's AKP party.

As a result of the backlash, the winning candidate was later reinstated.

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