Erdogan taps Istanbul prosecutor as justice minister in cabinet reshuffle

ANKARA — Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday appointed Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akin Gurlek, who has been overseeing the ongoing investigation against Turkey’s main opposition party as justice minister, in a mini cabinet reshuffle that also saw replacement of Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.

In a decree published in the Official Gazette at midnight, Erdogan announced that Gurlek would replace Yilmaz Tunc and Mustafa Ciftci would replace Yerlikaya. Ciftci has been serving as the governor of Turkey’s eastern province of Erzurum.

The mini reshuffle comes amid ongoing crackdown against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which saw the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and hundreds other party officials on charges broadly perceived as politically motivated.

Imamoglu, who was arrested in March 2025 on expansive corruption charges under Gurlek’s prosecution, now faces an indictment listing more than 140 alleged offenses that carry potential sentences in the thousands of years.

Imamoglu and other arrested CHP officials deny the charges, which they and government critics say are politically motivated and aimed at sidelining Erdogan’s most prominent rival ahead of presidential elections due in May 2028 and weakening the main opposition after its victory in the local elections in 2024.

Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its nationwide majority to the CHP for the first time since its inception in 2002.

Both Yerlikaya and Tunc were appointed to their posts after AKP won the 2023 general elections.

This developing story has been updated.