ISTANBUL: Two weeks before hosting a Nato summit that will be attended by leaders including US President Donald Trump, Turkiye arrested more than 200 people with alleged ties to far-left groups.

Rights groups and local media said the detainees included a journalist, three lawyers, an academic and a union official. The top-level summit takes place in the capital Ankara on July 7-8.

Early on Tuesday, the Ankara prosecutor’s office said it had issued warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in the city.

Of those arrested so far, 185 are suspected of belonging to several far-left organisations, including the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which has staged attacks in the past and has been branded a terror group by Ankara.

The detainees also included Yildiz Tar, editor-in-chief of LGBTQ journal Kaos GL, the MLSA rights group said on X, while the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD) said two of its lawyers were detained in Ankara and a third in Istanbul.

Newspaper Gazete Oksijen said an academic from Ankara University’s economics department and a union official were also arrested. Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced Tar’s arrest as “unacceptable” and demanded his release, saying the summit was no justification for his “arbitrary” detention on security grounds.

Authorities said the operations targeted multiple groups as part of broader security measures. In a post late on Monday, the Ankara governor’s office announced a ban on all demonstrations from June 28 until the end of the summit in order “to ensure summit security and maintain public order”.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2026