Turkey’s president: replacing elected mayors ‘overdue’

Last month, Ankara launched an operation to remove Daesh from Syria’s northern border region. The incumbents had been elected in 2014 local polls.

The municipalities affected, mainly in the southeast, include important, predominantly Kurdish urban areas such as Sur and Silvan in the province of Diyarbakir and Nusaybin in the province of Mardin. The ministry added that 12 officials had been arrested.

“Reaching a permanent ceasefire and a sustainable solution in Syria requires all political parties, on the top of them the Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava, to participate and take all appropriate steps for the process of the political transition”, the YPG said.

The HDP condemned the appointments as a “coup by trustees” that was reminiscent of the military takeover of 1980 and “ignored the will of the voters”. “Our government took this decision based on all of this evidence”.

In a televised message, Erdogan said it’s necessary to “render it [terrorists] unable to carry out activities in Turkey”.

Four people, including a deputy mayor, were briefly detained in a minor skirmish outside city hall in Hakkari.

The move led to protests that police later dispersed using water cannons and tear gas.

The government said in a statement that Turkey removed the mayors to stop local governments from aiding terrorism with public property and funds.

Turkey has removed local mayors deemed to support Kurdish militants and appointed new administrators in more than two dozen municipalities, mostly in the largely Kurdish south-east, a provincial governor’s office said yesterday.

“All dirty plots against Turkish unity are in vain”, he said.

A total of 11,285 personnel “linked to a separatist-terrorist organisation have been suspended”, Turkey’s education ministry said on its official Twitter account on Thursday.

The group called for a ceasefire in 2013 after clandestine talks between Ocalan and the Turkish spy agency, but the conflict has resumed since the collapse of the truce past year, leaving hundreds more people dead.

Previous efforts to forge agreements to stop the fighting and deliver humanitarian aid to besieged communities in Syria have crumbled within weeks, with the United States accusing Assad’s forces of attacking opposition groups and civilians.