ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday to express Washington’s concerns regarding recent arrests and ongoing protests in Turkey. 

The two sides also discussed several other topics including bilateral relations between Ankara and Washington and developments in Syria.

Rubio “expressed concerns regarding recent arrests and protests,” in Turkey, read a statement by the US Department of State. 

Turkish police have arrested over 1,400 protesters during week-long demonstrations sparked by the arrest of Istanbul’s deposed Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Tuesday, deriding demonstrators as “those who attack our national and spiritual values”. 

Despite his arrest, Imamoglu was formally named the candidate of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) for the 2028 presidential race.
 
Imamoglu, who will be the main rival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the upcoming presidential elections, was detained by security forces on Wednesday on multiple charges including bribery, extortion, money laundering, and aiding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
 
His arrest sparked large demonstrations across the country in recent days, with clashes breaking out between the protesters and security forces who used tear gas and water cannons to quell the protests.
 
A day before his arrest, Istanbul University revoked Imamoglu’s university degree on the grounds that it was falsely obtained, a move the CHP described as a political “coup”.

Turkey’s Fidan and the US Secretary of State discussed Syria, emphasizing the need to support the war-torn country’s stability and security. 

Rubio thanked Ankara’s “leadership in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and reiterated the need for close cooperation to support a stable, unified, peaceful Syria that is neither a base for international terrorism nor a pathway for destabilizing Iranian activities,” the statement read. 

Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency had earlier reported that the pair would discuss the dissolution of the PKK and its affiliated groups, but the State Department statement did not mention this.

The Turkish top diplomat’s visit to Washington comes amid significant steps taken in the peace talks between Ankara and PKK. In late February, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called on the party to disarm and dissolve, marking a potential turning point in efforts to end the four-decade-long conflict.

Turkey and the US are at loggerheads over the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which Washington sees as the key ally in the fight against ISIS, yet is deemed by Ankara to be an offshoot of its domestic foe the PKK. 

The SDF is the Kurdish de facto army in northeastern Syria that controls nearly a quarter of the country.