İstanbul mayor responds to minister's claim that 577 municipal employees have 'terrorist ties'

Photo: IMM Press

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İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has criticized the interior minister for his claim that hundreds of municipal employees have ties to "terrorist" groups.

"If the state detects a terrorist, it arrests them," he said yesterday (December 13), during a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for a social housing project in Tuzla district.

Minister Süleyman Soylu said on December 9 that a total of 577 employees of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) had criminal records for their ties to outlawed groups.

They had reviewed the records of 12,000 municipal employees and found that 455 of them had ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), 80 had ties to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), 22 had ties to the Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) and the Marxist Communist Party (MKP), the minister said at the parliament.

İmamoğlu said the municipality's recruitments are transparent and in accordance with legal procedures with employees asked to submit a letter of clearance.

He said the minister's claims and similar reports in pro-government media were intended to distract the people from the economic issues. "They are changing the agenda ... because one dollar is worth 15 lira now," he said.

"The names of our 85,000 employees are not confidential ... But, how will they walk on the street now? You called them 'terrorists.' How can a minister say this?" İmamoğlu further remarked. (EMK/VK)