Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has defended the suspension and subsequent conviction that has sentenced Mehmet Sıddık Akış, mayor of the city of Hakkari – elected in late March elections with 49% of the vote – to 19 years and six months in prison following an investigation launched in 2014 into his alleged links with the PKK terrorist group.
“Terrorism and democracy cannot coexist. Legitimate politics cannot be carried out by relying on those who have a Kalashnikov, a Molotov or a bomb,’ Erdoğan was quoted by Turkish media as saying during an award ceremony in Ankara, organised by the Anatolian Publishers Federation. ‘Anyone who abides by the red lines set by the law and our democracy and who does not deviate from the legitimate path, can of course freely engage in politics in this country,’ the Turkish president said, adding that ‘I am sorry, but the decision taken by the judiciary on Hakkari should not upset anyone’.
Following the announcement days ago of Akış’s suspension as mayor, several deputies from his DEM party staged a protest two days ago in the parliament, that led to clashes with MPs from Erdoğan’s AKP party. The DEM is a Kurdish nationalist political formation, created ad hoc to replace the former HDP party because of the latter’s risk of judicial closure, also for links to PKK terrorism.
Erdoğan: ‘Criticism must be directed against the PKK. We must all abide by the law’
In this regard, the Turkish leader criticised the attitude shown by the DEM, recalling that everyone is obliged to comply with the law: ‘If your candidates are not involved in any illegal activity, we have nothing to say about them. But if they are, we have to abide by the law… Hakkari is the first step… and justice will continue to do what is necessary,’ he stressed.
Opposition parties such as the CHP – which in recent years has begun a rapprochement with the DEM and Kurdish nationalism – have openly criticised the ouster of the Hakkari mayor, with its chairman Özgür Özel even calling the decision of appointing Hakkari governor to temporarily assume mayor’s duties ‘a disregard for the will of the citizens of Hakkari’. Erdoğan also responded to these statements during the event, saying that there can be no connection between terrorism and politics: ‘If there is to be a reaction against anyone, it must be against the attempts of Qandil (the northern Iraq mountains where the PKK has its main strongholds) to take over the municipalities, and not against the administrative measures applied within the framework of the law,’ Erdoğan said.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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