On September 11, 2016, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu made his first confession about the dismissal of the mayors of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP). A second confession by Soylu came on August 19, 2019 about the mayors of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Soylu, who was appointed to the Ministry of Interior on August 31, 2016, after the AKP's return to the concept of war, replaced DBP mayors by government-appointed mayors on September 11, 2016. Soylu dismissed 96 mayors of the DBP out of 102.

On August 19, 2019, Soylu dismissed the co-mayors of 65 municipalities, 3 of which were metropolitan, 5 provinces, 45 districts, and 12 towns run by the HDP and appointed governors and district governors to replace them.

In a recent speech in Istanbul Gaziosmanpaşa, Soylu said: “After I became the Minister of Interior, our president called me, and said, 'Süleyman, I am uncomfortable with these HDP/PKK municipalities in Turkey’s Southeast and East. You will dismiss them immediately’. I was eagerly waiting for this instruction anyway. Two days passed and I dismissed them all in a large-scale police operation at 08:00 in the morning.”