Mayors on trial for aiding PKK

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Mayors from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) went on trial yesterday in Diyarbakır for intentionally aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) by writing a letter to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen last year, asking him to keep the Denmark-based Roj TV on air despite Turkey's requests to get it closed down.

Forty-six mayors, including Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir, attended the first hearing of the trial at a criminal court in Diyarbakır, while 10 others were absent.

"I repeat here what we wrote in the letter, and I am ready to serve whatever criminal punishment it may entail," Baydemir told the court.