Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, May 2018. Photo: AFP
ISTANBUL,— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday defended his government’s decision to remove three pro-Kurdish mayors from office and accused them of serving “terrorists”, in comments published in the official Anadolu news agency.
The Kurdish mayors of Diyarbakir, Mardin and Van provinces in Turkey Kurdish in the southeast of the country — all members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) elected in March — were suspended on Monday over alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which is outlawed in Turkey.
The dismissals sparked protests including in the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir where police fired water cannons at demonstrators this week.
“Whoever is in hand in hand with terror, we will protect the authority given by the people within the boundaries of law till the very end,” Erdogan was quoted as saying in the capital Ankara.
He also said if the mayors “serve the terrorists instead of the people … we will kick them out.”
In all three cities, government-appointed governors took over the municipal administrations.
Erdogan’s government accuses the HDP party of links to the PKK, but the HDP denies the accusations and says it is being targeted because of its opposition to the government.
Following the July 2016 failed coup thousands of people were sacked including teachers accused of links to the Kurdish PKK militants.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Read more about Turkey’s policy against Kurds
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