Ministry of Interior investigates İstanbul Municipality for 'terrorist employees'

İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (Photo: Wikipedia)

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The Ministry of Interior has announced that it opened a special investigation into the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) after "notifications and findings that some of the IMM personnel are in connection or coherent with terror organizations."

İstanbul Mayor İmamoğlu, a member of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), dismissed the claims. "I stand with my 86,000 colleagues who serve İstanbul," he wrote on Twitter.

CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu targeted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the investigation, questioning whether he was "doing the groundwork for something in İstanbul."

Releasing a written statement, the IMM said the ministry implicated 86,000 municipal employees.

If people with "terror ties" can find jobs in public institutions, not the IMM but the Ministry of Interior is responsible for it, it said.

Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu first claimed in mid-December that the municipality had hundreds of employees with "terror ties."

The outlawed organizations subject to investigation include the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (455 employees), Revolutionary People's Liberation Party - Front (DHKP-C) (80 employees), Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) (20 employees) and Marxist Communist Party (MKP) (2 employees), as well as the "Fetullahist Terrorist Organization" (FETÖ), according to the ministry. (TP/VK)