Turkey dismisses three Kurdish presidents

2024-11-04 12:02:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Turkey has sacked three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeastern region, whom it accuses of terrorism.

The mayors of the cities of Mardin, Batman and Halfeti were dismissed from their positions and replaced with trusted people, the Turkish Interior Ministry said.

All three mayors are part of DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party, who were elected in local elections in March, when opposition candidates won in several towns and cities, including Istanbul.

Ahmet Turk, 82, was the mayor of Mardin, while Gulistan Sonuk served as the head of Batman and Mehmet Karayilan was the mayor of Halfeti.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry presented strong charges against them, including being members of an armed group and spreading propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey.

Since 1984, the PPK has waged an uprising against the Turkish state, an uprising that has left thousands of people dead, while the PPK has been blacklisted by Turkey's western allies.

Kurds make up about 20 percent of the population in Turkey.

The DEM party condemned the departure of the leaders, calling it a "big attack on the rights of the Kurdish people to vote and choose".

"The government has made it clear to get what it cannot win through the elections, using the judiciary, the police and the system of its trusted persons", said this party through a statement published in X.

Ahmet Turk, a prominent Kurdish politician who had been sacked twice before, was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison on charges of being a member of the PKK and allegedly involved in a series of deadly protests in 2014.

Meanwhile, the HDP party - now DEM - had called for protests after Ankara's failure to send troops to defend Kobane, a Kurdish town in northeastern Syria that had been taken over by the extremist group Islamic State.

In a post on X, Turk said he will not give up.

"We will not back down from the fight for democracy, peace and freedom," he said.

The dismissal of the three leaders comes days after another leader of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, was arrested on suspicion of having links to the PPK and replaced with an Ankara confidant.

Both the Republican People's Party and DEM condemned the arrest of the mayor of an Istanbul district, calling it politically motivated.

Over the past few years, the Turkish government has dismissed dozens of Kurdish leaders in the southeast and replaced them with its trusted people./REL