DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: Turkish police detained the mayor of the southeastern city of Van on Thursday, security sources said, a day after arresting two other regional mayors in a crackdown on politicians accused of links to Kurdish militants.
The sources also said Ankara had appointed administrators to replace elected mayors and run the municipalities in the provinces of Siirt and Mardin in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
The sources declined to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to media.
At the start of November, Turkish authorities appointed an administrator to run the southeast's largest city of Diyarbakir, having arrested its co-mayors over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.
On Wednesday, the mayors of Siirt and the eastern city of Tunceli were arrested over similar accusations.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union and launched an insurgency against the state in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
Turkey's Western allies are worried about due process and a deteriorating human rights situation in the southeast as the crackdown against Kurdish militants widens to include politicians and journalists.
