Turkey's Erdogan defends mayors' dismissal as “long overdue move”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, September 12 defended the suspension of 28 mayors over alleged links to Kurdish militants or U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, saying it was a long-overdue move, Reuters reports.

"To me, it is a step that came late. It should have been taken long before," Erdogan told reporters after prayers at an Istanbul mosque on the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha.

"You, as mayors and municipal councils, cannot stand up and support terrorist organisations. You do not have such an authority," he said.

Twenty-four of the outgoing mayors are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which is waging a deadly insurgency in the southeast, and four of them to Gulen, whom the authorities blame for the attempted July 15 coup.

The latest step was taken under the state of emergency imposed in the wake of the coup, with the ousted mayors, who were elected in the 2014 local elections, replaced by state-appointed trustees.

Erdogan accused the ousted mayors of "sending state funds to the mountain," referring to the areas where the PKK is holed up.

"They are carrying TNT (explosives)... they constitute a constant threat in the region," he said, according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also said some municipalities had turned into a "logistical centre for the separatist terrorist organisation."

The municipalities affected by the decision are mainly in the Kurdish-dominated southeast including Sur in the Diyarbakir region which has been ravaged by violence between the PKK and security forces.