ANKARA — Authorities are intensifying a crackdown on Turkey’s second-biggest opposition party, sacking two dozen of its elected mayors and forcing it to consider withdrawing from parliament and the municipalities it controls to potentially trigger by-elections.
The purge coincides with a military operation Turkey launched in neighboring Syria last month to attack a Kurdish militia that had fought alongside US troops to defeat the Islamic State. The incursion has stoked nationalist sentiment and has deepened animosity toward Kurdish political actors at home.
