Turkey’s opposition leaders have criticized what they describe as extraordinary security measures in Ankara ahead of next week’s NATO summit, accusing the government of turning the capital into a restricted zone, arresting critics and disrupting daily life for the sake of foreign leaders.
The summit, scheduled for July 7-8, will bring the leaders of NATO’s 32 member states to Ankara. US President Donald Trump is also expected to attend, along with other heads of state and government.
Özgür Özel, the ousted leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said at his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday that the measures had gone far beyond ordinary security precautions.
A court in May annulled the party congress that brought Özel to CHP leadership, a ruling the party rejects as politically motivated.
“Something shameful is happening in Ankara,” Özel said. “There is a strange situation in which the authorities are creating hardship for their own people and taking security measures to unimaginable levels just because there will be a NATO summit and foreign leaders will come.”
Özel also criticized the detention and arrest of people accused of planning protests during the summit, saying many had no connection to violence.
“They are arresting TEMA volunteers who went on a picnic before the NATO summit. They are arresting journalists, academics and civil society representatives, saying they will hold a protest during the NATO summit,” he said.
TEMA is one of Turkey’s best-known environmental organizations, working on reforestation, soil protection and environmental awareness.
A Turkish court last week ordered the pretrial detention of 178 people, including environmental volunteers from TEMA, an academic, lawyers and a journalist, in sweeping security operations in Ankara ahead of the summit.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered raids as part of what it described as an investigation into terrorism-related activity across the country. Police and gendarmerie teams detained 225 people after prosecutors issued warrants for 241 suspects, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Özel said prosecutors were accusing people of membership in organizations that “belong to 30 or 40 years ago” and were using the summit as a pretext for pre-emptive arrests.
According to reports on the court proceedings, the suspects were accused of links to the outlawed Turkish Communist Party/Marxist Leninist (TKP/ML).
“Forget preventive detention; these people are carrying out preventive arrests,” he said. “Everyone knows they have committed no crime. Everyone knows that after Trump leaves, they will say ‘sorry’ and release them all.”
The arrests have taken place along with a wide range of restrictions imposed in the capital for the summit.
The Ankara Governor’s Office has banned public gatherings, marches, press statements, sit-ins, hunger strikes, protests and similar events from June 28 to July 10, citing security measures for the summit.
Unauthorized access to summit venues, delegation hotels and protocol routes has also been restricted, while drone flights require permission.
Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), also criticized the measures at his party’s group meeting, saying Ankara had been turned into “an open prison.”
“Look at Ankara; the city has almost been turned into an open prison. It is not clear whether they are preparing for a summit or for war,” Bakırhan said.
“If they could, they would say, ‘Don’t even open the window of your home.’ The whole capital is being shut down so that a few protocol vehicles can comfortably pass by.”
Bakırhan called the arrests “unjust, unlawful and arbitrary.”
He also criticized the cost of summit preparations, saying around TL 12 billion ($257 million) had been spent, including TL 9.5 billion ($204 million) on road work and TL 69 million ($1.5 million) on green wall installations and decorative panels covered with plants, along protocol routes.
“Do roads have to be repaired and flowers planted only when there is a military summit in this country? What about the roads of Hakkari? What about the services people have been waiting for for years?” he asked, referring to the predominantly Kurdish southeastern province, where local politicians have long complained of underinvestment and poor public services.
Bakırhan also linked the summit to NATO’s push for higher defense spending, saying the real crisis in Turkey was not security but poverty.
“The real crisis is in the kitchen. The real security problem is people’s hunger,” he said.
Turkey has been struggling with a cost-of-living crisis for years. Official annual inflation stood at 32.61 percent in May, while independent labor data showed that the monthly poverty threshold for a family of four had risen to TL 114,576 ($2,456), more than four times the minimum wage.
The same survey put the monthly hunger threshold, the minimum food spending needed for a family of four, at TL 35,174 ($754), above the net minimum wage of TL 28,075 ($602).
Human Rights Watch said last week the arrests, protest bans and restrictions imposed ahead of the summit showed Turkey’s “ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly.”
In a separate development, 89 people detained in İstanbul for protesting a NATO parliamentary summit on Monday were released on Tuesday after police procedures were completed.
The detainees included members of several left-wing community, youth and student groups that had staged protests at different locations in İstanbul on Monday.
The summit preparations have also raised concerns beyond detentions and protest restrictions.
Some independent and opposition-leaning Turkish media outlets, including Halk TV, Sözcü TV, Cumhuriyet, T24 and Anka, were denied accreditation to cover the summit, prompting criticism from journalism organizations. NATO has said that for summits held outside its Brussels headquarters, accreditation depends on decisions by the host country.
Ankara police have also instructed municipalities in the capital to round up stray dogs before the summit, asking local authorities to remove animals from routes to be used by delegations as well as areas near venues, airports and hotels.
The order came as the Interior Ministry has begun allowing investigations into mayors over alleged failures to collect stray animals after attacks by street dogs, reviving concerns that Turkey’s controversial 2024 stray animal law could be used to pressure municipalities.
Even taxi drivers have been drawn into the summit preparations. Turkish media reported on Tuesday that drivers working at the airport, near summit venues, on protocol routes and around delegation hotels were told to wear gray trousers and white shirts, keep their vehicles clean, greet foreign visitors with a smile and offer Turkish delight, cologne and cold water.
The measures have added to criticism that Ankara is being put into showcase mode for the summit, with security, public order and image management extending into daily life across the city.
The government says the measures are necessary to ensure security during a high-profile international gathering. Turkish officials have not commented on opposition claims that the steps are excessive or politically motivated.