Turkey state of emergency to end Monday: PM

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Turkey's state of emergency, in place for two years, is to "end" by the beginning of next week, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced on Thursday. He said that the change would occur on Monday, after the country's re-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, enshrined in newly-increased powers, had announced his new cabinet.

Yildirim, whose office will become defunct, said a new decree would be issued on Friday "to prevent the struggle against terrorism from weakening" after the lifting of emergency rules.

Ankara imposed the state of emergency in the wake of a botched bloody military coup that was an attempt to overthrow Erdogan and his ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in July 2016.

The administration’s main argument for the state of emergency has been its power struggle with the movement of the US-based Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen which it accuses of masterminding the failed coup via its followers within the army.

Ankara also cites decades-long guerrilla warfare by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that began as part of an effort to form self-rule in Kurdish-majority provinces to the east and south of Turkey.

AKP and its far-right nationalist allies in the Parliament extended the policy for three months on multiple occasions, the last time in April after Erdogan called for the June 24 snap general and presidential elections from which he just emerged victoriously.

The elections were the second time voters headed to the polls under extraordinary measures after the 2017 referendum on whether to change the national system of governance from a parliamentary to a presidential one.

Opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has long argued that Erdogan was using the state of emergency to cripple freedoms and bring additional state institutions, including the judiciary and national police force, within his control.

Under the state of emergency, the President, empowered by the constitutional reform package narrowly approved by voters in the 2017 referendum, can bypass the Parliament in enacting new decrees.

His cabinet will not require a vote of confidence when he names its members on Monday.

Since last year, decrees have purged over 100,000 civil servants and ordered the closure of hundreds of media outlets, NGOs, cultural centers, private schools, and hospitals over allegations of having ties to “terrorist” groups the government claims are detrimental to national security.

There are also over 160 journalists and media workers behind bars and former co-leader of the HDP Selahattin Demirtas, one of the rivals of Erdogan in last month's elections, remains jailed along with nine other former lawmakers from his party.

The United Nations (UN), the Council of Europe (CoE), and international rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have previously called on Ankara to end the state of emergency, citing grave rights violations, including allegations of torture in prisons and abuses of state power by officials.

Editing by John J. Catherine