Mehmet Yıldırım

Turks began voting on Sunday for a new president and parliament in elections that pose the biggest ballot box challenge to Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party since they swept to power more than a decade and a half ago.

The elections will also usher in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Erdogan and backed by a small majority of Turks in a 2017 referendum.

In the year 1996, in the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey, "unresolved murders" were commonplace. The "East Report" by the head of Sabancı Holding, Sakıp Sabancı, had just been issued at the time. An enormous cycle of violence was about to end in the southeast. 

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.