Batman

The Interior Ministry on Nov. 7 launched an investigation into Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), and the party's Mardin provincial head.

The investigation was initiated over the statements made by Bakırhan and Mehmet Mihdi Tunç on Nov. 4, in the aftermath of the removal of three DEM Party's mayors in the country's southeastern region.

Three mayors from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM, formerly HDP), Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party, have been removed from office after being accused of…”terrorism,” the Turkish Interior Ministry said today.

The mayors of the southeastern provinces of Mardin and Batman and Şanlıurfa's Halfeti district have been removed from office, with trustees appointed in their place, the Interior Ministry announced on Nov. 4.

Members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have killed 23-year-old teacher Necmettin Yılmaz, who they had abducted last week in the eastern province of Tunceli. 

Yılmaz, who was serving as a teacher in the Çiftçibaşı village of the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, was driving on a highway when a group of PKK militants stopped his car. 

A music teacher who was killed in an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack in the southeastern province of Batman was laid to rest in the Osmancık district of the northern Anatolian province of Çorum on June 11. 

Many observers assume that Turkey's Kurdish question is limited to the war between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). For over three decades that conflict has defined the issue, causing the deaths of over 40,000 people.

The Hasankeyf Culture and Arts Festival was scheduled to be held next month in the southeastern city of Batman, where a trustee has been appointed to replace the mayor. The four-to-five-day festival has been organized for almost 10 years. Its aim was to draw attention to the ancient town of Hasankeyf, which will soon be under the waters collected by the Ilısu Dam. 

As pain is difficult to measure in Turkish, we sometimes use "the grief of losing a child," as a reference point to try to quantify the amount of suffering. We therefore accept that there is no bigger pain than witnessing the death of your child.

Russia said Dec. 25 that trucks loaded with oil continue to cross from Syria into Turkey but in lesser numbers thanks to its bombing campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

"Oil tank trucks are continuing to cross the Syrian-Turkish border," the defence ministry said in a statement, AFP reported.

Russian intelligence found up to 12,000 tankers and trucks on the Turkish-Iraqi border,  reports the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces has reported. Russian Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy told journalists on Friday that the aerial imagery was made in the vicinity of Zakho, a city in Iraqi Kurdistan. There were 11,775 tankers and trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border.