Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has labelled deposed Kurdish mayors as “unsavoury types”, prompting a strong response from Ahmet Türk, a veteran Kurdish politician and former mayor of Mardin (Mêrdîn), who described Erdoğan’s language “shameful” and “an insult to democracy”.
During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Erdoğan claimed that Kurdish municipalities are managed by “unsavoury types appointed by the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK].” His comment came as he addressed the controversial replacement of locally elected officials in Kurdish-populated areas, including Esenyurt (a district in İstanbul), Batman (Êlih), Mardin (Mêrdîn), and Halfeti (Xelfêtî), with government-appointed ‘trustees’.
Defending the trustee policy, Erdoğan asserted, “Turkey will not retreat from dismantling the bloody networks fuelled by Kandil’s terror lords [a PKK stronghold in Iraqi Kurdistan].” He added that figures in local government who “serve a terrorist organisation” would never receive “leniency” from his administration.
Ahmet Türk, the former elected mayor of Mardin (Mêrdîn), responded sharply to the president’s remarks, in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “There are no ‘unsavoury types’ in our municipalities, nor will there ever be. However, for three terms, unsavoury figures have hijacked the people’s will,” Türk said, describing Erdoğan’s accusations as “desperate”. The deposed mayor condemned the remarks directed towards him, a politician with “50 years in democratic politics”, as “shameful”.
