Turkey dismisses 3 pro-Kurdish elected mayors and replaces them with civil servants

ANKARA, Türkiye —

Turkey on Monday dismissed three elected pro-Kurdish mayors on terrorism-related charges and replaced them with state-appointed officials, the Interior Ministry said.

The move, which comes just days after a mayor from the country’s main opposition party was arrested and dismissed for alleged links to a banned Kurdish militant group, is seen as a hardening of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government’s policies towards the opposition.

The situation also raises questions about the possibility of a new temporary peace effort to end a 40-year conflict between the militant group and the state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

The mayors of the Kurdish-majority Mardin and Batman provinces, as well as the Halfeti district mayor of Şanlıurfa province, were dismissed due to ongoing lawsuits and investigations due to past convictions or connections to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party. According to the statement made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, PKK.

The mayors are members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), the third largest party represented in the Parliament. They were elected to office in the local elections held in March.

Last month, the leader of the far-right nationalist party, an ally of Erdogan, raised the possibility that the detained leader of the PKK could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization. His comments sparked debate and speculation about a possible peace effort.

Özgür Özel, the leader of the main opposition party CHP, described the dismissal of the mayors as a “coup” and accused Erdoğan of taking over the “municipalities” that he could not win in the elections.

Politicians and members of the pro-Kurdish movement in Turkey are frequently targeted for their alleged ties to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

MPs were stripped of their seats in parliament and mayors were dismissed. Since 2016, scores of MPs and thousands of party members have been imprisoned on terrorism-related charges.

Ahmet Türk, the deposed mayor of Mardin, wrote on the X social platform: “We will not step back from our struggle for democracy, peace and freedom.” “We will not allow the will of the nation to be usurped.”