Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has declared the end of military operations in Turkey’s southeast and said the government is entering a “second phase” by launching a massive campaign for the reconstruction of cities damaged by clashes between the security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“Now the operations are over, there will be physical and social renovation. We are replacing destroyed buildings with more beautiful ones,” Hürriyet Daily cited Yıldırım as saying.
Ankara also plans to take legal action against municipalities and mayors from the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) who are alleged to have transferred state resources to the PKK, he added.
“As we have ended our operations, there are now some other steps we should take. It’s time to settle accounts with the municipalities supporting terrorism. You transfer the money allocated to you for public services to the terror organization. But we won’t allow this,” Yıldırım said.
“As soon as possible, we’ll ask these local governors to pay the price for not using the state means given to them for the people,” he added.
