An indictment drafted by İstanbul prosecutors is seeking prison sentences of up to 15 years for 10 opposition municipal officials who were arrested last month on terrorism charges, Turkish Minute reported.
Among the officials, who are all from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), are two deputy mayors from the Kartal and Ataşehir districts.
The indictment, accepted by the İstanbul 23rd High Criminal Court, accuses them of membership in a terrorist organization — the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The indictment presents the suspects’ phone conversations with suspected PKK members or people convicted of membership in the PKK as evidence against them.
The officials are accused of recruiting members or sympathizers of the PKK under the guise of an election strategy adopted by Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party.
This strategy, referred to as the “urban consensus model,” refers to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party’s (DEM Party) approach to candidate selection in Turkey’s western cities in preparation for the March 31, 2024 local elections.
The party aimed to engage a wide range of community stakeholders, not just its members, by forming alliances with other political parties as part of this strategy. The DEM Party supported mayoral candidates whose nominations were decided in consensus with other parties. In some areas certain CHP candidates were elected with the backing of the DEM Party.
According to the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is leading the investigation, the goal of the urban consensus model was to ensure that Kurds have a voice in city council decisions, to encourage their participation in local government and to create a political balance in western provinces and districts. This was in exchange for support for a candidate, even if they were unlikely to win the municipality.
The arrest of the municipal officials followed a wave of investigations and arrests targeting CHP municipalities in İstanbul.
Earlier this week Beykoz Mayor Alaattin Köseler became the third CHP mayor in İstanbul to be arrested and removed from office in the past four months, as the government has intensified judicial pressure on the party.
The CHP and government critics say the latest judicial actions targeting party members in İstanbul aim to discredit their party and İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, seen as a potential future challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, along with other opposition figures in the city.
Meanwhile, the indictment of the 10 municipal officials comes at a time when jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has called on his militant organization to lay down its arms and disband, in a historic statement read out in İstanbul last week that raised hopes about the end of the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK.
Öcalan made the call as a result of peace talks with him initiated by far-right leader Devlet Bahçeli and endorsed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last year.
