By IPS Correspondents
ISTANBUL, Feb 29 2000 (IPS)

Greeted and welcomed by cheering crowds, Greater Diyarbakir Mayor of pro-Kurdish HADEP party, Feridun Celik, returned to City Hall on Tuesday after being detained for over a week.

“Finally democracy has won. Democracy was tested. And forces of democracy proved invincible,” he told his cheering supporters.

Celik, along with Selim Ozalp and Feyzullah Karaaslan, Mayors of southeast cities of Siirt and Bingol, were on Monday released and their immediate reinstatement to office ordered by Interior Minister, Sadettin Tantan.

Celik and 32 other HADEP candidates won a landslide victory in last April’s elections securing almost all the mayoral seats in the war-torn Southeast.

But Celik, Ozalp and Karaaslan were arrested last week following four days of detention in the Diyarbakir Gendarme Command, under charges of “complicity with the outlawed PKK” (Kurdish Workers Party).

The arrests unleashed an outcry of protest from across Europe and Turkey.

Following the release, Turkish Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk admitted to journalists that the mayors had been mistreated. “There has been excess treatment,we can not accept this,” he said.

Hundreds in the southeast Diyarbakir took to the streets to protest the arrests and sources say many were arrested and beaten by the anti-riot police.

Analysts say the unexpected arrests have also given rise to suspicions of Ankara resuming its’ hard-line stance in dealing with the Kurdish issue.

The mayors were released after their lawyers appealed to the superior court on the basis that the detentions were illegal as the authorities had no evidence or sufficient reason to hold the men.

Evidence put forward by the local prosecutor included Internet records allegedly taken off Celik’s office computer and a testimony from a PKK source who claimed to have arranged meetings between the mayors and the PKK leaders in exile in the Netherlands.

The court ruled in favour of the Mayors and described their removal from office under orders from Interior Minister Sadettin Tantan as being ‘questionable’ and ‘strange administrative practice’

The court ordered that the mayors be released on bail taking into consideration that the three men ‘had a permanent address and were not in the position to alter the evidences’.

“Our political activities are by no means aimed at legitimising the PKK,” Celik said denying the charges.

With regards to the accusations that the Mayors had been meeting with foreign delegates with unusual frequency, Celik said; “We have been continuously lobbying for Turkey’s entry in the European Union. Mayoralty should not only be seen as collecting garbage and investing on infrastructure. We have assumed a political mission and our grassroots have political aspirations,” he said.

“Turkey’s domestic and international situation has changed considerably following PKK leader Ocalan’s arrest and his later call for laying down arms during trial,” observes political analyst Oral Calislar.

“Since then we have witnessed relative moderation to de facto recognition of the Kurdish identity,” he told IPS.

“But, this has also instigated reactions by those sectors (in the state) who have benefited from conflict and war,” Calislar said.

“The mayors’ arrest and their later release, this apparent contradiction as a matter of fact reflects the conflicting tendencies within the Turkish state,” he adds.

“One side is pushing for the continuation of the war, the other side is seeking a way out of it.”

“The warmongers have seen to their arrest, the peacemakers have released them,” he said summarising the situation. “This is further proof that the Kurdish question remains on the edge.”

The release of the Mayors has been welcomed by the international community. “A positive development. International pressure has contributed to the result,” Dimitris Reppas, Greek government spokesperson was quoted as saying in the media.

Junior coalition ANAP (Motherland Party) leader Mesut Yilmaz also believes that the mayors arrest was an ‘unfortunate happening’.

“The government from the start was misinformed of the situation by the local officers,” Yilmaz told journalists.

“Albeit the judiciary is independent of the executive, the government should have been informed by the prosecutors,” he criticised local law enforcers.

“If the recent events are aimed at undermining HADEP, it is in vain,” says Hasim Hasimi, a Kurdish deputy with the ANAP.

“HADEP had gained 100 thousand votes in the last elections, they will get two times higher if there is an election today,” he argues.

“Hard-line policies bring revenues from war. There are great profits from drug-trafficking, arms smuggling, and other types of illegal economy.

“Turkey should correct its erroneous political line, and we should do all what we can to reverse Turkey’s detaching itself from Europe,” says Hasimi.

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