Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish party Mayor in southern province

Ankara, Jan 13 Turkish authorities on Monday arrested the pro-Kurdish DEM Party Mayor Hosyar Sariyildiz and four municipal council members from the Akdeniz district of southern Mersin province on terrorism charges and appointed a trustee, the country's interior ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said that Zeyit Sener, the District Governor of Akdeniz, will be the acting Mayor.

Mayor Sariyildiz, Deputy Mayor and Council Member Nuriye Arslan, and DEM Party council members Ozgur Caglar, Neslihan Oruc, Yakup Danis and Hikmet Bakirhan were detained on Friday following an investigation conducted by the Mersin Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

After interrogations, Sariyildiz, Arslan, Caglar, Oruc and Bakirhan were arrested. Meanwhile, Yakup Danis was released under judicial control measures.

They are accused of violating laws concerning terrorism financing and public assembly, Xinhua news agency reported.

In November, trustees were appointed to replace DEM Party mayors in Mardin Metropolitan Municipality, Batman Municipality, and Sanliurfa's Halfeti District over similar accusations of affiliation with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The DEM Party, which holds 57 parliamentary seats, has consistently denied the allegations, asserting that the charges are politically motivated attempts to suppress opposition voices.

The PKK, designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, has been engaged in armed rebellion against the Turkish government for four decades.

Over the weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the PKK to surrender its weapons, signalling a potential breakthrough in the country's most intractable conflicts.

Speaking in the Kurdish-dominated city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, Erdogan described what he called a "new and important window of opportunity" to resolve a struggle that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s. "We do not think it is right that this should be wasted," he said.

His government has recently enlisted support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, whose members visited Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, to explore possibilities for disarmament, local media reported.

The Turkish media suggested that Ocalan may soon urge PKK militants to lay down their arms, potentially marking a major turning point in the decades-long struggle.

The push for peace comes as Turkey seeks to strengthen its domestic unity amid regional turbulence. Erdogan emphasised the urgency of ending what he called "half-century-long separatist terrorism" and burying it "in history with all its dimensions."

Even as diplomatic overtures continue, Turkish security forces maintain pressure on the organisation. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced that police operations across 41 provinces in the past 10 days had resulted in the detention of 147 suspected PKK members.

Source: IANS