The mayor of Istanbul’s biggest district, Esenyurt, was replaced with a government-appointed trustee on Thursday following his arrest over alleged membership in the PKK terrorist group.
Ahmet Özer, elected from the opposition’s Republican People's Party (CHP) in the municipal elections earlier in March, was suspended as a temporary measure and Istanbul Deputy Governor Can Aksoy has been appointed as deputy mayor of Esenyurt, Interior Ministry announced in a statement.
Özer was arrested late Wednesday when authorities found concrete evidence, including communication records, physical tracking reports, banking transactions and continuous contact with high-level terrorists of the PKK.
Police searched Özer’s house, office and vehicle and seized documents regarding his appointment in the PKK’s so-called democratic autonomy project during a meeting with the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on the prison island Imralı. The said appointment is also mentioned in organizational documents seized from other PKK suspects and delivered to the PKK stronghold in northern Iraq's Qandil region.
Prosecutors ordered Özer’s phone to be wiretapped, which revealed the mayor held phone calls with 694 suspects linked to the PKK, as well as Remzi Kartal, a senior PKK member wanted in the red category with whom he spoke 14 times over a decade.
The CHP had come under fire during local elections for "covertly" cooperating with the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). In the case of Esenyurt, both parties had agreed on Özer as a joint candidate, as the HDP refused to nominate a candidate for the district.
CHP Chairperson Özgür Özel noted that the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK) would convene in the Esenyurt district regarding the mayor’s detention.
In a statement posted on his social media account, Özel said the party canceled a planned camp in Antalya on Nov. 1-3 to discuss the issue.
Özer’s detention comes amid increased debate around the end of terrorism and heightened security against PKK attacks in Türkiye after the terrorists killed five and injured 22 in an attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in Ankara last week.
The attack struck days after Devlet Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), ally to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), made an unprecedented proposal that Öcalan could be granted parole on the condition that he renounce violence and dissolve the PKK.
AK Party's chair, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has endorsed the surprise statement from Bahçeli, who has traditionally maintained a hardline stance against the PKK.
But in a heated address on Wednesday, Erdoğan ruled out any direct negotiations with the “terror barons” in Iraq and Syria and instead stressed “Kurdish-Turkish unity would be what drives PKK terrorism to extinction.”
“My dear Kurdish brothers, we expect you to firmly grasp (Bahçeli's) sincerely outstretched hand," Erdoğan said.
The PKK, which has waged its bloody terror campaign since 1984, exploited the Kurdish community to create a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Türkiye.
Turkish officials are opposed to the conflation of the Kurdish community and the PKK, arguing the definition implies Kurds are a problem for Türkiye and abets the PKK’s terrorist agenda.
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, but the group still has operatives within the country.
