(ANSA) - Naples, March 13 - The Kurd-supporting mayor of the southern Italian town of Santomenna said Friday that he had been expelled from Turkey and had his council telephone taken from him.

"I was arrested last night at Istanbul airport and then expelled for surreal security reasons," Massimiliano Voza, one of a group of Italian mayors who have supported initiatives for the Kurdish people and given honorary citizenship to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. "I was interrogated and held all night without reason along with 15 other people from a variety of backgrounds.

"I was even denied the right to call the Italian consulate, which moved into action on its own thanks to a foreign ministry initiative.

"They searched me and confiscated my mayor sash and my council telephone". Voza is a heart surgeon by profession and he had worked as a volunteer in the Syrian city of Kobane after it was liberated from ISIS. The Comitato Napoli per Kobane association said that Voza had been arrested simply because he had a ticket for the Kurdish-majority southwestern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.

