Turkish courts cracked down on Turkey's main Kurdish party yesterday, jailing its leader and charging three of its mayors with aiding separatist guerrillas.
The legal onslaught was likely to stir controversy both in Turkey and in the European Union, which Ankara is trying to join.
A lawyer said the mayors of Siirt, Bingol and Diyarbakir, regional capital of the largely Kurdish south-east, had been remanded in custody by the Diyarbakir State Security Court. They were detained last weekend. The mayors, elected last April in polls that saw sweeping gains for their Kurdish HADEP party, were charged with helping Kurdistan Workers Party rebels led by Abdullah Ocalan, who has been captured and sentenced to death.
While many had viewed the new HADEP administrations with suspicion, there was some prospect that they could open the door to dialogue in a region racked by conflict for 15 years.
The last six months had seen a slackening of the fighting and debate on the Kurdish question had become more open.
An Ankara court sentenced the party's leader Ahmet Turan Demir, former head Murat Bozlak and 16 others to three years, nine months in jail yesterday for aiding the PKK in protests following Ocalan's capture last year.
"Something is happening in Turkey," commentator Mehmet Ali Birand wrote in the Turkish Daily News. "A certain toughening up is being experienced. The biggest fear is that there will be a return to the tense periods of the past."
The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Massimo D'Alema, warned Turkey would be under close EU scrutiny.
The clampdown on HADEP is likely to set back the steadily improving relationship between Turkey and the EU which in December at last gave it candidate member status, Patrick Smyth adds from Brussels. There had been hopes in other European capitals, arising from assurances in the run-up to the December Helsinki EU summit, that the Turkish government was willing to begin a dialogue with its Kurdish minority.
Ankara's road to membership looks as difficult as ever. It faces an annual assessment from the EU on its preparedness for membership both in economic and political terms, and on the latter will continue to face severe criticism on three fronts - its unwillingness to resolve diplomatically the disputes it has with Athens, a continuing unwillingness to press the puppet regime in northern Cyprus to enter meaningful dialogue on a settlement for the island, and continuing concerns about internal human rights, particularly in regard to the Kurds. While the withdrawal of its candidate status is certainly not on the cards yet, such incidents make any talk of accession exceedingly remote and inflame MEPs, who have always been less concerned about Turkey's strategic importance than its human rights record. The issue will be raised at the next parliamentary plenary. The EU has also been concerned about the death penalty looming over Mr Ocalan.
Although the Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, hinted that he would be spared by a general abolition of the death penalty, there are still concerns, fuelled by the crackdown, that Turkey's volatile politics could push the government to an execution.