MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Ousting of mayors, military operations are response to Öcalan’s peace call – PKK commander
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) executive committee member Murat Karayılan said the mayors of the three largest Kurdish majority cities in Turkey had been ousted as a response to the PKK leader’s call for a renewed peace process, Kurdish Fırat News Agency reported on Thursday.
Early in August, imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan called for a new peace process on Turkey’s long-lasting Kurdish question during a meeting with his lawyers.
Turkish authorities on Monday removed the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) mayors of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van on terrorism charges and replaced them with appointees.
Meanwhile, Ankara has intensified military operations in predominantly Kurdish-populated southeastern provinces since last year in an effort to eliminate the PKK, which has fought the Turkish state intermittently for Kurdish self-rule since 1984.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s move is a response to Öcalan’s peace call and should be understood in a broader sense as an effort to take revenge for the local elections on March 31, according to Karayılan.
“The AKP was struck by the HDP and the Kurdish people in the March 31 elections. One of the aims of such an attack on the HDP is to take revenge,” he said.
Kurdish voters secured a series of victories for the HDP across the southeast of the country, but they also played a key role in the AKP’s defeats in crucial cities including Istanbul and Ankara, where the HDP backed opposition candidates.
The PKK leader added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was trying to polarise the society and secure his power with a possible early election.