Mardin

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will "face destruction" after April 2017, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has predicted .

"Let me be clear, these days are their [PKK] good days. They will face such massive destruction that they can't even imagine," Soylu said in a ruling Justice and Development (AKP) meeting in the eastern province of Van on Dec. 9.

Arrested People's Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said he knew he would be arrested 15 days before his arrest, during a visit from a committee of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) on Nov. 30. 

A CHP committee that featured lawmakers Fikri Sağlar, Eren Erdem, Ali Şeker and Orhan Sarıbal visited the arrested HDP co-chair at Edirne Prison.

A constitutional draft will be introduced to the Turkish Parliament after one last meeting with Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said.

When Deniz Baykal, the former chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), heard that Ahmet Türk, the co-mayor of the Syria border city of Mardin, had been taken into police custody on Nov. 21, he immediately decided to go to Mardin to talk to Türk in solidarity. 

The ousted mayor of the southeastern province of Mardin, Ahmet Türk, was arrested on "terror" charges on Nov. 24, becoming the latest Kurdish politician to be arrested.

Mardin Co-Mayor Ahmet Türk was referred to a court with a demand for his arrest on Nov. 24 after he was ousted from his elected position by Turkey's authorities.

Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani visited Turkey on Nov. 23 and held talks with turkey's president, prime minister and foreign minister, during which he focused on the ongoing Mosul offensive and the detention of Ahmet Türk, the ousted mayor of Mardin. 

Police on Nov. 21 detained former Mardin co-mayor Ahmet Türk from the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), four days after he was dismissed from his post as a part of a terror investigation, Doğan News Agency has reported.

Police conducted searches at Türk's residence in Mardin at around 10:15 a.m. before he was subsequently taken to the police headquarters to testify.

The leader of the main opposition party has blamed Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu for every fallen soldier and police officer in the Nusaybin district in the southeastern province of Mardin, as he argued the governor of the city had not allowed security institutions to take necessary measures against terrorists despite intelligence provided about intense preparations for urban warfare in the di

Turkey?s education system continues to discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities, reinforcing an exclusionist definition of ?Turkishness,? a joint report by the History Foundation and the Turkey branch of the Minority Rights Group has stated.