Turks paying heavy price for Erdogan’s policies
Under his rule, Ankara scrapped long-standing ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy
ANALYSIS
Turkey was riding high in 2010, casting its brand of Islamic piety, Westernstyle democracy and economic growth as a regional model amid popular upheavals in the Mideast and North Africa.
Six years later, it is mired in tension with neighbours and allies, dominated by a president seeking to increase his constitutional powers and now enmeshed in a purge of large sectors of society after an uprising by renegade military officers.
The changes that led to this turn in Turkey’s fortunes include internal rifts — the collapse of a Kurdish peace process and the alleged erosion of democratic rights under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are among them — as well as the war in Syria and other regional chaos in which Turkey has taken sides.
Erdogan is also sparring with the US, a Nato ally, over his demand that Washington extradite Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric Turkey accuses of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt.
And on August 9, he is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to repair strained ties following Turkey’s apology for shooting down a Russian fighter jet last year. The breach has cost Turkey an important source of tourists, and stalled energy deals.
After the failed uprising, the government is trying to rid the military, judiciary and other institutions of suspected Gulen supporters.
Reflecting tension with allies, Turkey has complained of a lack of strong support from European nations and the United States for the government’s sweeping efforts to weed out suspected plotters and Gulen’s supporters.
“Until now, we have not received the backing and the statements that we, the whole of Turkey, expect from these countries,” said Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law.
A linchpin of Turkey’s former appeal was its now-moribund bid to join the European Union, and Turkish rhetoric described the country as a bridge between the West and Muslim countries.
“Turkey was a shining star in the region. It was a country whose word was listened to,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Turkey’s main opposition leader, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.
However, “this has been lost to a great extent” because Turkey “intervened in the internal affairs of other countries,” Kilicdaroglu said.
At the time, Turkey’s leaders said they had to adjust their policy of diplomatic outreach, dubbed “zero problems with neighbours,” because of rapidly unfolding, historic change.
Erdogan supported the revolt against Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but has frosty ties with military rulers who toppled Islamist leader Mohammad Mursi in 2013.
Erdogan previously vacationed with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, but demanded his ouster as the conflict intensified there. Today, after allegedly tolerating a flow of weapons and fighters to Syrian rebel groups, Turkey hosts three million Syrian refugees. It has suffered extremist bombings after backing the US-led campaign against Daesh, and attacks from Kurdish separatists.
Internally, the coup attempt by suspected supporters of Gulen exposed deep tensions in Turkey, fuelled partly by concern that the president is pushing towards autocratic rule.
While Erdogan has presided over the ruling party’s extraordinary electoral success since 2002, he has also alienated secular Turks who believe he wants to impose an Islamic lifestyle.
A police crackdown on demonstrations in 2013 that began as a protest against the urban development of Istanbul’s Gezi Park killed a dozen people and undermined Turkey’s credentials as a stable democracy.
Turkey’s robust economic growth during Erdogan’s early years in power was the envy of the region, but Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded its credit rating for Turkey deeper into “junk” status, citing the failed coup and political turmoil. Erdogan said there were no “justified reasons” for the downgrade, declaring: “Our economic indicators are so much better than most countries in the world.”
However, Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, suggested in an email to The Associated Press that Erdogan’s recent overtures to Russia and Israel were “flip-flops” that reflected worries about the Turkish economy and efforts to revive business.
Tarkan Kadooglu, president of a non-governmental business group, said: “The society is in need of a political language that is uniting, not one that is polarising.”