The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has renewed its threat against trustees appointed to municipalities in Turkey’s Southeast following the murder of an appointee over the weekend.
The KCK’s Murat Karayılan made a statement on a Kurdish TV station and, in reference to the trustees, said that “from now on these people will not be forgiven.”
After the declaration of a state of emergency in the wake of a failed coup on July 15, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government had replaced elected mayors, mostly Kurdish, with political appointees on the grounds that the mayors were linked to terrorism.
Karayılan alleged that the first act of the trustees who replaced the mayors was to shut down institutions that would keep Kurdish culture alive. “They are closing down schools teaching Kurdish,” Karayılan said in a recent interview.
A muhtar, or neighborhood head, who was recently appointed by the Interior Ministry to the Erciş Municipality city council in the eastern province of Van, was killed in an armed attack on Sunday.
Karayılan, who back in June threatened to target trustees if they were appointed, reiterated his threat, arguing that the AKP has been using the trustees as its “counter-organization.”
