Politics
Collaborators bring down Istanbul mayor’s alleged ring of corruption
A network of corruption across municipalities in Istanbul, Türkiye’s most populated city, is under the spotlight after the March arrest of the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, a popular name of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). An in-depth investigation into the wrongdoings of an alleged criminal network led by Imamoğlu led to five separate operations that netted dozens of suspects. In the meantime, more people come forward to confess to the wrongdoings involving Imamoğlu and other suspects.
Some 24 suspects among 230 detained so far invoked leniency laws in exchange for valuable information shedding light on the accusations. Most are names closest to Imamoğlu, including top bureaucrats of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB).
Confessions of suspects shape the investigation centered at IBB, which led to the arrest of 114 people out of 230. Twenty-four suspects were released with judicial control after accepting a collaboration deal with investigators. Among those who benefited from leniency in prison terms are Murat Abbas, former head of Kültür AŞ, a subsidiary of IBB, Ertan Yıldız, who chaired a committee overseeing the municipality’s subsidiaries, Mustafa Mutlu, who served as an adviser for public tenders for Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district municipality, and businesspeople Murat Ilbak, Aziz Ihsan Aktaş, Eyüp Subaşı, Ali Nuhoğlu, Seyfi Beyaz and Süleyman Atik.
Murat Abbas has accused Murat Ongun, a top bureaucrat of IBB and a confidante of Imamoğlu, of organizing irregularities in public tenders and recruitment of municipal officials while Yıldız shed light on a bribery ring at the municipality. Yıldız has confessed that a company paid $1.2 million to cut down red tape and Aykut Erdoğdu, a former CHP lawmaker, acted as intermediary for bribe between the company and IBB. Yıldız told investigators that Erdoğdu brought a bag full of cash and handed it over to Fatih Keleş, chair of IBB Sports Club who is accused of serving as “coffer” for illicit cash accumulated by Imamoğlu.
Ali Nuhoğlu has confessed that he bought three villas in Istanbul’s upscale Emirgan quarters after the city’s water utility paid him a hefty sum for work, and in turn, he sold the villas to a construction company owned by Imamoğlu’s family far below the properties’ real value, as a disguise for the bribe. Nuhoğlu has told investigators that the water utility also forced him to slash its debt to the businessman and pay the slashed amount to the utility’s officials.
Aziz Ihsan Aktaş said that municipalities he won public tenders, particularly the Beşiktaş municipality, forced him to pay extra cash for tenders and extra money was handed to the district’s mayor and his deputies, while in some occasions, he was forced to purchase overpriced properties and vehicles from those people as a disguise for bribes.
Servet Yıldırım, a chauffeur for Hüseyin Köksal, a businessman, told investigators that Imamoğlu told his boss to set up two companies exclusively for access to IBB’s public tenders. Yıldırım said Imamoğlu, Köksal and another suspect shared the illicit cash they won through tenders for lucrative advertising spaces, billboards in the city.
The CHP has claimed that anti-graft operations against municipalities were politically motivated, but officials deny it and point to the independence of the judiciary, which carries out the operations. In the first wave of 2025 operations against municipalities, Imamoğlu and 105 others were detained on March 19 and remain incarcerated in pretrial detention. Looking to earn popularity for Imamoğlu, the CHP has declared him its presidential candidate for the upcoming elections, although annulment of his university diploma days before his detention over irregularities made the former mayor ineligible to run for top office.
In a speech last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hit out at CHP for defending Imamoğlu and others detained on corruption charges.
“If you don’t work for the nation, you are either a ‘rantçı’ (profiteer) or a ‘bantçı’ (someone who uses tape to conceal something),” he said at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party). “Bantçı” in this case refers to a bodyguard of Imamoğlu who was captured in footage as he put tape on security cameras before Imamoğlu’s secretive meeting at a hotel with fellow bureaucrats of IBB. Media outlets reported that the footage emerged in the investigation into the former mayor’s alleged wrongdoings, raising suspicions about the nature of the meeting, which was followed and preceded by more at the same hotel. Some reports claimed that the meeting and others were the venue of discussions on how to share illegal profits Imamoğlu and others gained through graft, from rigging public tenders to bribery in exchange for building permits.
“You see what happened to profiteers, you see what state they drove Istanbul into. We witnessed how they terrorized the squares. They do not tolerate anyone other than themselves. They try to bully anyone who disagrees with them, they attack anyone who does not side with thieves,” Erdoğan said. The CHP held pro-Imamoğlu rallies, claiming the innocence of the mayor, after Imamoğlu’s arrest in March. Rallies in Istanbul and other cities escalated into violent riots. The CHP supporters also launched social media campaigns against celebrities not endorsing the rallies, while the party’s leader, Özgür Özel, called for a boycott of companies he accused of serving the government’s interests, as well as against broadcasters not broadcasting the rallies live.
The president stated that they witnessed a new act of corruption surfacing “almost every day” in the investigation into what he called a criminal organization. “You see how they looted Istanbul’s resources. (The authorities) reveal the tentacles of an octopus extending from Istanbul to other cities, to abroad. Their own colleagues confess how they extorted money and received bribes,” Erdoğan said.
Doubling down on the terrorist group’s separatist ambitions, YPG leader Ferhat Abdi Şahin has renewed his calls for a decentralized Syria and the removal of “Arab” from the country’s official name.
In an interview with the Istanbul-based Yeni Yaşam newspaper, Şahin argued that the “Syrian Arab Republic” title, in use since 1961, “does not reflect the reality” of the multiethnic nation and should have the word “Arab” removed.
“Syria does not belong only to Arabs. Such radical changes must be made in Syria,” he said.
“(Syria) cannot be centralized and totalitarian like it was during the Baath regime. It must be a decentralized Syria. All provinces in Syria must be able to govern themselves through local governments,” Şahin claimed.
Just last week, Şahin told local media the YPG “defends the slogan ‘one army, one government, one state,’” echoing Damascus’ calls for full national unity.
The shift in tone comes as the group continues to negotiate with Syria’s interim government over the implementation of a March 10 agreement recognizing Damascus’ sovereignty.
Under the deal, signed by Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the YPG pledged to recognize Damascus’ sovereignty and transfer airports, oil fields and border crossings under its control to the central government by the end of the year.
However, the agreement stops short of outlining how the YPG’s armed wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), will be integrated into Syria’s army, a key sticking point. Damascus insists fighters join individually, while the YPG demands entry as a bloc, an issue that threatens to stall the process.
The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which has waged a decadeslong terror campaign in Türkiye and is designated a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Türkiye.
With U.S. support under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the YPG seized large swaths of northern and eastern Syria during the civil war. Turkish cross-border operations have since reduced its territorial grip, but it still holds key oil, water and agricultural resources in the northeast.
Washington has recently acknowledged the group’s ties to the PKK, with Tom Barrack, U.S. ambassador to Ankara and special representative for Syria, claiming the U.S. has no obligation to support “the formation of an independent state by the so-called SDF.”
Last month, Barrack also dismissed federalism as a workable model in Syria.
“The problem is that in all these countries (Iraq and Syria), federalism does not work and that a state within a state cannot be established,” Barrack said.
The U.S. envoy has urged Damascus to maintain “one homeland, one nation, one army, one government,” accusing the YPG of being reluctant to fully commit to national unity.
Şahin, however, claimed that a decentralized structure is essential for stability.
“(Barrack) understands that Syria cannot be governed by one person … I hope he has concluded that a decentralized Syria is necessary,” Şahin said.
The YPG’s push for decentralization and symbolic changes, such as altering the country’s name, is widely seen by Türkiye as part of a broader effort to entrench separatist control in Syria’s north.
Ankara has long opposed the YPG’s presence along its border, warning it will “intervene” if the group does not comply with the March 10 deal and disarm as the PKK did.
As part of the landmark terror-free Türkiye initiative, the PKK announced in May it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of violence.
Abdurrahman Tutdere, the mayor of the southeastern province of Adıyaman, who was detained last month on corruption charges, was reinstated to his post, the Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday.
Tutdere was suspended from office on July 10 after he was ordered into house arrest following a corruption investigation.
The same investigation has led to detentions of Antalya Mayor Muhittin Böcek and Adana Mayor Zeydan Karalar. All three men are from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is entangled with a series of corruption probes. The CHP’s Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, was arrested in March on graft charges.
The CHP is under mounting scrutiny as a wave of corruption, bribery and terrorism-related investigations sweeps across its municipalities.
Since late 2024, more than 500 people, including some 15 sitting mayors, have been detained in police operations. Over 200 have been formally arrested, while dozens benefited from the legal provision of “effective remorse” in exchange for cooperation with prosecutors.
Authorities say more than 10 major investigations are underway into municipalities controlled by the main opposition CHP, covering allegations from large-scale tender rigging and bribery to financing terrorist organizations.
The most extensive probe targets the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB). Prosecutors allege a network, headed by senior municipal officials, that rigged numerous public contracts. Imamoğlu and his aides deny all charges.
Linked to these allegations is the case of businessperson Aziz Ihsan Aktaş, accused of heading a criminal network that allegedly bribed mayors and senior officials to secure lucrative tenders. Aktaş, initially arrested, was later released after cooperating with authorities under “adequate remorse” provisions.
Two separate investigations in Istanbul focus on alleged links between CHP district municipalities and the PKK terrorist organization. Police operations earlier this year targeted nine CHP-run districts, leading to the arrests of deputy mayors and council members. Prosecutors claim certain local initiatives were used to bolster PKK influence in major cities.
In another high-profile case, dismissed Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer faces trial on charges of PKK membership, while former Sarıyer Mayor Şükrü Genç is accused of financing the DHKP-C terrorist group through municipal channels.
The corruption allegations extend far beyond Türkiye’s largest city, though several of the most prominent cases are centered in Istanbul.
In Istanbul’s European districts, Beşiktaş and Büyükçekmece, officials are accused of bribery, irregular contracting and abuse of office. In the Anatolian districts of Beykoz and Şile, the mayors were arrested on charges of tender rigging, extortion and involvement in organized crime, while Kartal’s mayor and several municipal officials allegedly rented out public properties in violation of the law.
In western Izmir province, the CHP municipality is facing two separate probes: one targeting irregularities in construction projects and another focusing on corruption in a municipal subsidiary, which has already led to the arrest of former Mayor Tunç Soyer.
Türkiye’s newly formed National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission, led by Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş, adopted its working procedures and principles Tuesday in its first session at the Turkish Parliament.
During the opening session, representatives of political parties with and without parliamentary groups shared views on the commission’s significance and the process ahead.
The commission unanimously approved its working procedures and principles in the first meeting, adopting the official name National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission.
Its next meeting will take place Aug. 8 at 2 p.m. in the Turkish Parliament’s Ceremony Hall, with Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Director Ibrahim Kalın invited to brief the body on their institutions’ work and current developments.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Ersin Tatar reiterated on Tuesday the need for a two-state solution to the Cyprus question, arguing that the Greek Cypriot side has shown “no intention” of achieving a solution.
Tatar reiterated his stance as he received Colin Stewart, the U.N. secretary-general’s Cyprus envoy and head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force, for a farewell visit as Stewart is stepping down on Saturday.
After the meeting, Tatar thanked Stewart for his service, saying that he had always maintained an open and transparent stance.
In his statement, Tatar referred to the U.N. Security Council’s inclination toward a “two-zone, two-community” federation on the island, saying that no solution had been found in the negotiations held so far and that the Greek Cypriot side has shown no intention of reaching a solution.
“We insist on a two-state solution on Cyprus. The TRNC is a sovereign state in every sense of the word. The decision taken by the U.N. Security Council on Cyprus is outdated and has lost its validity. The region has changed, the status has changed, the Eastern Mediterranean has changed and Türkiye has reached a completely different point,” said Tatar.
Stewart’s farewell
Stewart, whose term as special representative began in 2021 and will end on Saturday, thanked Tatar for having good, productive meetings over the years.
“I know that he deeply cares about Turkish Cypriots and looks after their interests, and he always tried to be constructive about this,” he said.
The island has been split between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities since 1974, when a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.
Greek Cypriots control the southern part of the island and are recognized by the international community as a state, despite protests from Turkish Cypriots and Türkiye. The TRNC is located in the northern part of the island and is recognized only by Türkiye.
It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the U.K.
The Greek Cypriot administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute.
More recently, informal U.N.-led meetings have continued, including one in Geneva in March at the request of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. That meeting focused on practical cooperation in areas such as crossing points, demining and environmental protection. While progress was made on some issues, others stalled due to the stance of the Greek Cypriot side.
To help advance the process, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy on Cyprus, was reappointed in May and has since conducted multiple visits and consultations with leaders and officials on the island, Türkiye, Greece, the U.K. and the EU. Despite her efforts, core political disagreements remain unresolved.
As Africa rises in strategic potential with its young population and rich resources on the international stage, Türkiye continues to deepen its relations with the continent by the day.
The economic development moves, regional integration projects and incentives toward foreign investors of African countries increase the continent’s global influence. Africa, which harbors around 18% of the world population, draws the interest of many countries not only in terms of human resources but also with its growing consumer market.
Africa has approximately 40% of the world’s gold reserves, 60% of cobalt and a significant portion of oil and natural gas reserves. Interest from especially China, the U.S., the EU, India and Gulf countries is growing.
Türkiye, meanwhile, has been investing in its ties with the continent through infrastructure investments, development projects, military cooperation, as well as education programs among other fields.
As part of its foreign policy toward the continent, Türkiye increased the number of its embassies in Africa from 12 in 2002 to 44 by 2024.
African countries also increased their embassies in Türkiye, and the number of African embassies in Ankara rose from 10 in 2008 to 38 in 2024.
Ankara’s increasing diplomatic representations on the continent have led to stronger ties, especially in political, economic and cultural areas. The number of mutual visits in the past five years has exceeded 500.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made 53 visits to 31 African countries, making him the leader who has visited the continent most often.
As a sign of its growing influence, Ankara has since taken on the role of mediator in talks between Ethiopia and Somalia, which have been locked in a feud over access to the ocean since June.
The number of agreements Türkiye has signed with African countries has also grown significantly.
Trade ties
Ankara has entered into trade and economic cooperation agreements with 49 African nations, signed agreements on the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments with 32 countries, double taxation avoidance agreements with 17 nations, military framework agreements with 35 countries, military training cooperation agreements with 21 nations and defense industry cooperation agreements with 29 countries.
Furthermore, business councils have been formed with 49 African countries, covering nearly the entire continent.
Türkiye’s trade with Africa grew nearly nine times, from $4.3 billion in 2002 to $36.6 billion by 2024. Its investments in Africa rose from $67 million in 2003 to $10 billion in 2024.
Furthermore, Turkish contractors completed 2,031 projects in Africa, worth $97 billion, by the end of 2024.
Türkiye’s official export finance institution, Türk Eximbank, became the AFC’s first non-African investor in December 2023, upon the invitation of the African Finance Corporation (AFC).
Moreover, Turkish Airlines (THY) has made significant strides in connecting Africa to the world, currently serving 62 destinations in 41 countries across the continent. It notably became the first airline to resume operations in Mogadishu in 2012 after the airport was rebuilt with Turkish assistance.
Other Turkish institutions are similarly active in Africa. As of the end of 2024, approximately 62,000 African students were pursuing higher education in Türkiye through the Türkiye Scholarships program.
Additionally, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) has 22 active representatives in Africa.
Meanwhile, the Yunus Emre Institute (YEE) Turkish Cultural Center offers Turkish lessons to Africans and promotes Turkish culture at 18 centers across 15 African countries.
The Turkish Maarif Foundation also educates around 25,000 students at more than 230 institutions in 27 African countries.
Defense cooperation
Türkiye has also extended its successful defense industry collaborations to African countries. Leading Turkish companies such as Baykar, Aselsan, Tusaş and Nurol Holding have seen rising demand for their products on the continent. These defense partnerships and related initiatives continue to strengthen bilateral trade.
According to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Türkiye’s total exports to African nations rose by 1.7% in 2024, reaching $19.4 billion. Egypt was Türkiye’s top African export destination last year at $3.5 billion, followed by Morocco with $3.1 billion and Libya with $2.5 billion.
Türkiye has also expanded defense cooperation with several African countries, including Libya, Somalia, Niger, Chad and Sudan. Under a 2019 memorandum of understanding on military and security cooperation, Türkiye continues to provide military training and consultancy services in Libya.
The ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) central executive committee is set to convene Wednesday to discuss the terror-free Türkiye initiative.
AK Party members will review the work of the parliamentary terror-free Türkiye committee, which held its inaugural meeting Tuesday at Parliament. An informational report on the committee’s efforts will be presented.
The 51-member committee, comprised of legislators from most major parties, is charged with proposing and supervising legal and political reforms following the PKK terrorist group’s decision to disband and lay down arms, ending a four-decade-long terror campaign that claimed over 40,000 lives.
The AK Party’s upcoming Türkiye Meetings program, set to launch this weekend, is also expected to be on the agenda.
In addition, the Health Ministry will deliver a presentation, following up on proposals made by the party’s Health Policies Department during the executive committee meeting two weeks ago.
The situation in Gaza will also be discussed, particularly in light of Israel’s ongoing attacks and embargoes. Erdoğan, who has recently stepped up diplomatic activity on the issue, is expected to deliver messages on Gaza during the meeting.
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