The photo issue

conduct THE TENDENCY TO Turkish foreign policy through photos rather than content has become dominant during the AK Party era.

In particular, high-level family photos with Western leaders were always presented to the Turkish public as the concrete result of the AK Party’s victories in foreign policy. The king of diplomatic photographs that would reinforce this was supposed to be the pose next to the U.S. President at the White House for Erdogan, who repeatedly stated that the AK Party government still rules Turkey after the March 31 local elections. However, this photo has not been included in the photo album for the last four years.

It didn’t happen. Other photos took precedence over the Biden-Erdogan photo.

The most prominent of these was, of course, the photo of Erdogan in Turkey with Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official considered a terrorist by the U.S., just days before the planned meeting at the White House. The balance upset by the Haniyeh photo was tried to be restored in Baghdad with a photo of Iraqi Prime Minister As-Sudani, in Erbil with a photo of both the KDP and PUK leaders, and in Ankara with a photo of German President Steinmeier. And to some extent, they even managed to do so.

However, it was spoiled by the possibility of a statement to be made while taking the infamous photo. The possibility of Erdogan repeating in the White House, in front of the press, the sentences he uttered just before his trip to Washington, such as “My prayer is this; O Lord, may your name Kahhar manifest itself and make these Zionists, especially Netanyahu, perish,” obviously caused uneasiness. Both sides must have decided it was not worth the risk of irreparable damage to the already fragile Turkish-American relations in such a situation, so the trip scheduled for May 9 was canceled.

Time will tell whether Erdogan’s visit to Washington, which has only been postponed for now, will turn into an endless story like Russian leader Putin’s expected visit to Turkey.

FAMILY PHOTO WITH THE EU ALSO CANCELED

As Turkish foreign policy focused on the White House photo issue, another crucial diplomatic photo that was canceleddid not find its well-deserved place on the agenda.

It is well known that the AK Party government is seeking foreign investment, especially from Western countries, to find a solution to the economic crisis. The European Union must have seen an opportunity in this trend, so Turkey was invited to an EU meeting at the level of foreign ministers.

However, just as the European Parliament elections are approaching, it is essential to look for a diplomatic hidden catch in European countries’ remembering that Turkey, which they cannot get enough of criticizing, is a candidate country. This catch is, of course, directly related to the Cyprus issue.

The EU meeting on April 29, to which Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was invited, is being held to celebrate the Union’s biggest wave of enlargement. In that 2004 enlargement wave, despite Turkey’s objections, Greek Cypriots were included in the European Union as if they were the sole rulers of the island.

If Hakan Fidan had accepted the invitation to participate in the European Union family photo, he would have celebrated the accession of Greek Cypriots and all EU countries. Fortunately, Ankara realized the cost of this photo and declined the invitation.

Ankara was very disturbed by the fact that the EU’s latest summit resolution again included Cyprus as a precondition for improving relations with Turkey. Because. Right after the celebration, Turkey decided to attend the Candidate Countries Meeting held on April 30, not at the Ministerial level, but at the Ambassadorial level.

There are no elections on the horizon in Turkey. However, the government has a constitutional amendment on its agenda. It is, of course, highly probable that the AK Party government has calculated that photographs with Western leaders - in the wake of the recent local election defeat - will do more harm than good on the constitutional issue.