The Turkish authorities arrested this morning Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Esenyurt, the largest municipality in the metropolitan region of Istanbul, on the charge that there are “strong suspicions of committing a criminal act” against him as a member of the Kurdish organization PKK.

Ahmet Ozer was elected mayor of Esenyurt in the elections of March 31 this year by the main opposition Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP), while in the two years 2022-23 he was an adviser to the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu.

According to the indictment, Ahmet Ozer is a member of a terrorist organization and in the last ten years had communicated 694 times with members of the PKK, of which 14 times with one of the leaders of the organization and wanted for terrorism, Remzi Kartal.

Ozer’s arrest took place at 6:00 in the morning and was followed by a police search of the municipality, his home and his business.

Reactions

Reacting to Ozer’s arrest, CHP chairman Özgür Ozel spoke of an unjust arrest on baseless charges and linked the event to the developments surrounding the Kurdish problem in recent days. On October 23, there was a terrorist attack against the Turkish Aerospace Industry (TAI) in Ankara, while a day earlier President Erdogan’s government partner, Devlet Bakhceli, had hinted that PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan could be released if he denounced armed violence and was asking the members of his organization to break it up.

“Our mayor of Esenyurt, Professor Ahmet Ozer, was arrested in an operation this morning. I am closely following what is happening. The treatment of a scientist, opinion-former and politician, who has for years held high-ranking positions in the public sector and in the academic community, who received approval from the relevant authorities to be a candidate only six months ago, who rose to office in the elections with great support from the voters of Esenyurt, is unfair and the allegations against him unfounded. These events are not independent of what has happened in recent weeks,” said the CHP president.

The mayor of Istanbul is on a similar wavelength Ekrem Imamoglouwho stated: “The mayor of Esenyurt, Professor Ahmet Ozer, was arrested this morning. We are following the process closely. Mr. Ozer, who has served the state and worked at the highest levels of universities from the position of chancellor and vice-chancellor, is a valuable scholar and local government agent. Turkey must stop being a country where politicians and scientists’ homes are raided in the morning.”

Esenyurt is not only the largest municipality in the Istanbul metropolitan region, but also the largest regional municipality in Turkey, with a population of one million inhabitants, absorbing a large part of internal migration into the country, mainly from the eastern and southeastern provinces. It is located to the west of the wider urban fabric of Istanbul and has seen leaps and bounds in recent decades.