Turkish police have detained more than 120 city hall officials in Izmir, a stronghold of the opposition, according to reports from local media and the Republican People's Party (CHP) on Tuesday.

The arrests, linked to allegations of corruption, follow a similar crackdown in Istanbul on March 19, where Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor and main rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was detained.

In Izmir – Turkey’s third-largest city, governed by the opposition for years – a former mayor and numerous senior officials were among those taken into custody, said Murat Bakan, vice president of the CHP, on X. Local media reported that authorities issued around 157 arrest warrants as part of the operation.

“We are witnessing the same process we saw in Istanbul,” Bakan wrote, adding that former mayor Tunc Soyer and CHP regional president Senol Aslanoglu were among those arrested.

“These dawn raids were not driven by legal necessity but were a clear political choice,” he said, noting that many of those detained were already under investigation and would have cooperated if called to testify.