Using double‐antibody sandwich–enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (DAS‐ELISA), pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) was detected in 27 pepper (Capsicum spp.) plants of 3000 tested and found to be present in Adana, Antalya, Kahramanmaraş, Mersin and Şanlıurfa, all provinces devoted to pepper production in southern Turkey. Results of reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) using primers specific to RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and capsid protein (CP) genes confirmed those of ELISA by amplifying all PMMoV‐infected plants. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and PCR assays using sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) marker primers showed that PMMoV from Turkey overcomes L³‐gene‐mediated resistance, so pepper plantations are susceptible to PMMoV infection. Sequences of CPs showed high amino acid identities (92–99%) with their homologues in the database and, furthermore, to share a distinguished molecular print found common uniquely in pathotypes P_1,2,3. The phylogenetic tree allocated the Turkish isolates in one cluster together with PMMoV pathotypes P_1,2,3 of the Italian, Spanish and Israeli isolates, all reported to overcome the L³‐resistance‐breaking gene in pepper. This is the first molecular information on PMMoV isolates present in Turkey, for which this information could have guiding significance in future pepper resistance breeding in the country.