A senior leader of Turkey's beleaguered main opposition party accused the government of fabricating enemies in a politically motivated crackdown to reassert control after its election defeat last year, in an interview with AFP.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party "politically named the new enemy on March 19 -- (and) the new enemy is the CHP," said Burhanettin Bulut, a deputy leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP).

Bulut, in charge of the party's public relations and media, said Erdogan was threatening the country's democratic foundations through his government's campaign of arrests and lawsuits.

Turkish authorities have detained a string of elected officials on charges ranging from graft to terror-related offences, including, on March 19, Istanbul's powerful mayor Ekrem Imamoglu -- Erdogan's main rival.

"This government keeps itself alive by constantly defining an enemy," Bulut told AFP in an interview at the party's headquarters in the capital Ankara.

The government "sustains its political strategy through........

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