Turkish authorities on Thursday arrested Mehmet Pehlivan, lawyer for imprisoned Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed “concern” for the “arrests and protests” in Turkey, warning that the showdown between Imamoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could destabilize a NATO member and U.S. ally.
Protest rallies have been held across Turkey every day since Imamoglu was arrested on March 19 on charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist group. The popular Istanbul mayor is seen as the strongest rival to Erdogan in over two decades of the authoritarian president’s rule. Imamoglu was nominated as the presidential candidate of his CHP party last Sunday, even though he was in jail.
Demonstrations in support of Imamoglu quickly became the largest street protests Turkey has seen in over ten years, despite Erdogan’s efforts to ban the rallies. CHP has denounced Turkish police for using excessive force against the protesters and claims the charges against Imamoglu were fabricated so Erdogan could eliminate his leading rival.
Posting on social media platform X from prison on Thursday evening, Imamoglu said his lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan had been “detained on fictitious grounds.”
“As if the coup against democracy was not enough, they cannot tolerate the victims of this coup defending themselves. They want to add a legal coup to the coup against democracy,” Imamoglu wrote.
The Istanbul mayor and other CHP party leaders have been referring to his arrest as a “coup against the next president,” language no doubt chosen in part to annoy Erdogan, who survived a military coup attempt in July 2016.
“The evil that a handful of incompetent people are inflicting on our country is growing. Release my lawyer immediately,” Imamoglu demanded.
CHP’s deputy leader for Istanbul, Turan Tashkin Ozer, denounced Pehlivan’s arrest as “another fabricated justification and another fabricated detention!”
Turkish media reported Pehlivan was detained in Istanbul on vague charges of “laundering assets originating from a crime.” He was later released from custody, but was forbidden to leave the country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday he expressed the Trump administration’s concerns about the escalating protests and crackdowns during a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Washington on Tuesday.
Turkish diplomatic sources have disputed Rubio’s account of his conversation with Fidan, but on Thursday he reiterated the points he made to the foreign minister.
“We’re watching, we’ve expressed concern. We don’t like to see instability like that in the governance of any country that’s such a close ally, especially,” Rubio said.
“We watch the same news reports everybody else sees about what’s going on. We’re certainly concerned about these protests and some of the reports,” he said.
Rubio said President Donald Trump had a “very good working relationship with Erdogan in the first administration,” and both sides would “like to restart that.”
“They are a NATO ally. We would like to cooperate with them in Syria and other places,” he said.
