Turkish police on Friday said it detained a PKK-linked mayor, along with five other managers of his municipality as part of a terrorism-related investigation, in the southern province of Mersin.
Hoşyar Sarıyıldız, a member of the opposition’s Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and mayor of Mersin’s Akdeniz district, his deputy Nuriye Arslan, and four other party members of the municipality’s assembly were detained and taken in for questioning, police said in a statement.
It added they were detained for “carrying out propaganda for a terrorist organization,” “membership of an armed terrorist organization” and “violation of the law to prevent financing of terrorism.”
Many DEM Party mayors and local administrators, which has 57 seats in the 600-seat Parliament, have been detained in similar operations in recent years.
The government typically appoints a trustee to the position during legal proceedings.
The government has not announced a trustee appointment yet.
DEM Party’s two mayors in Tunceli and Ovacık districts in eastern Türkiye were replaced by trustees in November.
Türkiye has appointed trustees to nine municipalities in total since the local elections in March 2024.
The detentions come amid efforts in Türkiye aimed at ending the PKK’s terrorism in the country, which have fostered hopes for peace.
The PKK is deemed a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union. The group, which has waged its bloody terror campaign since 1984, exploited the Kurdish community to create a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Türkiye.
Tens of thousands of people have already died in the conflict. The last attempt at peace failed in 2015 when the PKK resumed attacks during negotiations.
According to the International Crisis Group, the conflict has shifted from Türkiye to northern Iraq and northern Syria since 2019, after the Turkish military continued to push back PKK terrorists over and away from its borders. However, the group still has operatives within the country.