Turkey Turkish mayor arrested and removed from office

SDA

31.10.2024 - 11:25

ARCHIVE - The Ministry of Interior said it had temporarily removed the mayor and appointed the deputy governor of Istanbul. Photo: Ali Unal/AP/dpa
ARCHIVE - The Ministry of Interior said it had temporarily removed the mayor and appointed the deputy governor of Istanbul. Photo: Ali Unal/AP/dpa
Keystone

A mayor of Turkey's largest opposition party CHP has been arrested on terror charges and removed from office.

The public prosecutor's office accuses Ahmet Özer, mayor of the Istanbul district of Esenyurt, of membership of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), as reported by the state news agency Anadolu. He is said to have had "organic links" to leaders of the organization.

The Ministry of the Interior declared that it had temporarily removed the mayor and appointed the deputy governor of Istanbul. This was justified with ongoing investigations. The CHP condemned the action as politically motivated. The pro-Kurdish opposition party Dem wrote on Platform X: "This is a clear coup against the will of the people."

Özer comes from a Kurdish family from south-east Turkey and was elected mayor in the local elections in March in the majority Kurdish district. The CHP had achieved a surprising success in the local elections and won most of the mayoral offices in the country.

Repeated action against pro-Kurdish mayors

A rapprochement between the Turkish state and the PKK is currently being discussed in Turkey. The PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the USA, has been fighting against the Turkish state since the 1980s.

In the past, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly taken action against pro-Kurdish mayors for alleged PKK links and has removed them from office. The popular Istanbul mayor and Erdogan rival, Ekrem Imamoglu, is threatened with a ban on political activity due to several proceedings against him.

SDA