Turkey’s emergency rule stokes Kurdish separatism
Purges at municipalities and schools in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, carried out as part of an emergency rule that was supposed to target the putschists behind the July 15 coup attempt, will make the Kurdish problem even more intractable.
Five days after the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan convened back-to-back meetings with the Council of Ministers and the National Security Council, installing a nationwide state of emergency. According to what he said at the time, the state of emergency, which empowers the government to restrict basic rights and freedoms and govern via legislative decrees, aimed to “eliminate the putschist terrorist organization.”
The measures, however, have gone well beyond the stated aim of purging the putschists of the so-called Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO), the term Ankara uses to refer to Gulen followers. Now, eight weeks later, the measures have begun to further complicate Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem. Two decisions, announced last week under the state of emergency, have raised the specter of escalation in the conflict spawned by the Kurdish problem.
On Sept. 11, the Interior Ministry appointed trustees to run 28 municipalities in the predominantly Kurdish east and southeast, including two big cities — Batman and Hakkari — as well as 24 districts and two towns. This meant the ouster of elected mayors, whose ministry-appointed replacements took office the same day.
According to an Interior Ministry statement, 24 of the 28 mayors were removed for aiding and supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a designated terrorist organization, and its affiliate, the Kurdistan Communities Union. Twelve of them, the statement said, were already behind bars, arrested earlier pending trial.
