Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Istanbul\u2019s Esenyurt district, denies \u201cterrorism-related\u201d charges he is accused of
\n ISTANBUL
\nA mayor from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) was arrested late on Wednesday after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkey.
\nThe arrest of Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Istanbul\u2019s Esenyurt district, followed an attack on Turkish defence company TUSAS that killed five people in Ankara last week, a strike the PKK claimed responsibility for.
\nIt also comes amid talk of a peace push by a close ally of President Tayyip Erdogan, the first bid in a decade to end Turkey\u2019s 40-year conflict with Kurdish militants.
\nOzer denies the \u201cterrorism-related\u201d charges he is accused of.
\nThe CHP said it would defend him against what it called unfounded allegations that it said reflected the latest government attempt to target the opposition through the courts, and urged people to protest in Esenyurt.
\nErdogan\u2019s government has denied similar accusations by the party in the past.
\nThe CHP runs the Esenyurt municipality, which is one of the country\u2019s biggest, with some 1 million residents, many of them immigrants.
\nOzer, a sociology professor, is a former adviser to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a potential future presidential challenger to Erdogan who faces his own legal headwinds and has appealed a prison sentence and political ban.
\n\u201cWe see political interference in the judiciary. We know there\u2019s a politically staged plot,\u201d Imamoglu said on Wednesday, adding that the timing of the mayor\u2019s arrest was puzzling given the peace proposal by Erdogan\u2019s ally.
\nAysegul Dogan, spokesperson for the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament\u2019s third-largest, condemned Ozer\u2019s arrest and said he had been elected with its support. The arrest undermines the \u201cdemocratic opposition\u201d, she said.
\nThe PKK has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey for four decades, with more than 40,000 people killed in the conflict.
\nTurkey\u2019s Western allies also list it as a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Istanbul\u2019s Esenyurt district, denies \u201cterrorism-related\u201d charges he is accused of ISTANBUL A mayor from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) was arrested late on Wednesday after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkey. The arrest of Ahmet Ozer, mayor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-440832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n