Imamoglu’s studies in Cyprus have come under the microscope in recent days, with Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor’s office demanding that he give a statement to them, and Turkey’s higher education council (Yok) referencing a decision taken in 1991 stating that it was “not possible” to recognise the Kyrenia university.

The university was an affiliate of the United States’ Southeastern University at the time, and operating under the name “University College of Northern Cyprus”.

Akpinar defended the university he founded and Imamoglu, telling news website Bugun Kibris that, “if I were to speak as the Girne American University, Ekrem studied in Cyprus”.

“The part which concerns us is the assertion that our university was not recognised at the time. This is completely wrong. Southeastern University is accredited in the US, Yok has approved these diplomas for years, and there are hundreds of students who received an education here and then transferred to dozens of different universities,” he said.

He added that the Turkish embassy in the north was granting students at his university military deferral approval documents, something he said the embassy would not have been able to do if his university was not recognised in Turkey at the time.

“Ekrem’s transfer was legal,” he said.

Imamoglu first moved to Cyprus in 1988, first studying at Famagusta’s Eastern Mediterranean University before transferring to Kyrenia. He then transferred to Istanbul University in 1990, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1994.

The prosecution had insisted on Tuesday that the decision not to recognise the university in Kyrenia was not a one-off retroactive move in Imamoglu’s case, but that letters had been sent by Yok to various Turkish universities in 1988, 1991, and 1992 stating that the only university in the north it recognised was the Eastern Mediterranean University.

However, later the same day, Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivanli said the criteria for transfers to Turkish universities from abroad had been defined by a regulation written in Turkey’s official government gazette in 1982, and that Imamoglu had fulfilled those criteria.

Pehlivanli added that Yok recognition of foreign university courses only became a legal standard for university student transfers in Turkey following the publication of a new regulation in Turkey’s official government gazette in 1996.

“In other words, the recognition and equivalence rule Yok has was introduced exactly six years after Imamoglu’s transfer. It is not possible to explain the retroactive application of a rule introduced six years later within the law. I think the explanation for this is a matter of politics,” he said.

The accusations come after Imamoglu had declared his intention to run to be Turkey’s next president, with the CHP set to hold an internal election this year to decide who its candidate will be.

Imamoglu is the clear frontrunner to be his party’s candidate, with party leader Ozgur Ozel and Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas both having publicly stated that they will not stand.