ANKARA: Turkiye stripped two elected pro-Kurdish mayors of their posts in eastern cities on Friday, for convictions on terrorism-related offenses, the interior ministry said, temporarily appointing state officials in their places instead.
The local governor replaced mayor Cevdet Konak in Tunceli, while a local administrator was appointed in the place of Ovacik mayor Mustafa Sarigul, the ministry said in a statement, adding these were “temporary measures.”
Konak is a member of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, which has 57 seats in the national parliament, and Sarigul is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors from its predecessor parties have been removed from their posts on similar charges in the past.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said authorities had deemed that Sarigul’s attendance at a funeral was a crime and called the move to appoint a trustee “a theft of the national will,” adding his party would stand against the “injustice.”
“Removing a mayor who has been elected by the votes of the people for two terms over a funeral he attended 12 years ago has no more jurisdiction than the last struggles of a government on its way out,” Ozel said on X.
Earlier this month, Turkiye replaced three pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities over similar terrorism-related reasons, drawing backlash from the DEM Party and others.
Last month, a mayor from the CHP was arrested after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkiye and deemed a terrorist group by the European Union and United States.
The appointment of government trustees followed a surprise proposal by President Tayyip Erdogan’s main ally last month to end the state’s 40-year conflict with the PKK.
Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities
https://arab.news/wq9mz
Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
