Turkish police detain pro-Kurdish mayors in Mersin

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish security forces have taken over a municipal council building in the southern province of Mersin and detained the co-mayors and four council members, the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) announced on Friday.

“Today, Akdeniz Municipality was seized, and our co-mayors Hosyar Sariyildiz & Nuriye Aslan, along with our council members, were detained. The AKP government continues its hostility against Kurds everywhere. But we will defeat these antidemocratic practices through our struggle,” DEM Party announced on X, referring to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The local government officials were detained as part of an investigation into crimes including terror propaganda, financing terrorism, and membership in an armed group, Anadolu Agency reported.

The police have surrounded the Akdeniz municipality building and a trustee had been appointed to take over the mayorship, according to a deputy of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, Ali Bozan.

“We were prevented from entering Akdeniz Municipality by the police and were told that the trustee had issued a ban order: 'A trustee has been appointed to Akdeniz Municipality and this will be published on the website of Mersin Governorate'. Trustee system is usurpation, trustee system is theft of will, we do not accept the decision to appoint a trustee to Akdeniz Municipality,” Bozan was reported saying by Mezopotamya Agency.

Removing Kurdish mayors and replacing them with trustees is a familiar tactic of Turkish authorities. Since 2016, dozens of Kurdish mayors have been dismissed and replaced with government-appointed trustees and many of them have been sentenced to jail on terror-related charges, often accused of association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkey is on the possible brink of new peace talks to end four decades of conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state.

Late last month, a DEM Party delegation, consisting of the party’s lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, was granted rare access to Imrali prison to meet jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Reacting to the detention of the Akdeniz mayors, DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said the government cannot remove pro-Kurdish elected officials while claiming to work for peace.

“We have a few words for the helpless who think they will try to bring us into line with coups, for the government that walks around with a velvet glove on one hand and an iron glove on the other. We know both of these hands very well, but you also know us very well. We have never bowed down to your putschist practices and oppression, and we will never bow down. We will fight against trustee coups no matter what the cost, we will defend the will of our people under all circumstances,” Bakirhan wrote on X.

DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), played a key role in negotiating peace talks a decade ago. The short-lived ceasefire collapsed in 2015 and was followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s southwestern Kurdish areas.