Both Iran and Turkey have taken important steps not only to mend relations marred by their divergent outlooks on Syria but also deepen them, especially in the economic and cultural spheres. There is enormous potential if the two powerhouses come closer together.
Let by unrealistic expectations of reviving the Ottoman legacy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan chewed more than he could swallow in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. After repeated failures, Ankara has embarked on a course correction, one hopes, in sincerity.
Is Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan going ahead with the missile defence deal with China? There has been strong reaction in Western capitals against the proposed deal by a Nato member with a serious rival of the West. What is Erdogan thinking and why is he so upset with the US and Nato to go elsewhere?
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan faces an acute dilemma now that President Mursi has been overthrown in a military coup. Erdogan had set up an alliance together with Qatar to act as policemen in the region. The alliance is now in tatters.
Gripped by incessant protests at Taksim Square, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan finds himself in an even greater bind now that President Mursi has been overthrown in Egypt.
Returning from the northwestern Black Sea city of Kastamonu, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s convoy was attacked on May 4. As part of his election campaign Erdogan had visited the city to address its residents urging them to vote for his Justice and Development Party (AKP). He then flew by helicopter to a nearby city to continue his campaign, while his election convoy, including his campaign bus from which he usually delivers speeches and greets the people, was returning to the AKP headquarters in Ankara. When Erdogan’s campaign bus was 25 km from the city centre, around the Ilgaz Mountains, a sudden burst of machinegun fire targeted the police car escorting the convoy. After the initial shots, the attackers came closer to the police car and threw a grenade which set the car on fire, injuring one police officer and killing another in the vehicle. After a brief exchange of gunfire with the prime minister’s bodyguards, the attackers fled the scene without suffering any casualties.
By challenging Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos on January 29, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan captured the imagination of millions of people, especially Muslims, around the world. His 56-word response to Peres echoed globally: “You are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much.
The already complicated and volatile situation in Iraq may be about to deteriorate further. After months of escalating tensions along the Iraq-Turkey border, in October 17 the Turkish parliament passed a motion submitted by the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that permits military strikes on Iraq. The motion, the first of its kind since Turkey’s invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, was approved by an overwhelming majority of 507 in the 550-member Turkish grand national assembly.
On the eve of Turkey’s parliamentary elections, Hurriyet, a daily paper in Ankara, predicted that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would not get more than 30 percent of the popular vote. In the election on July 22, the AKP increased its vote by 12 percentage points to 46.5 percent from a crowded field of 14 political parties and 700 independent candidates. Despite increasing its share of the electorate’s votes, the AKP’s seats declined slightly to 341 from the 354 it had had in the outgoing parliament of 550.
On May 25, Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed a proposed constitutional amendment that had been passed by the Turkish parliament, by which the president of the country would in future be elected by a direct vote of the people, rather than by the present arrangement in which he is elected by parliament. The amendment had also proposed to reduce the president’s term from seven to five years but allow him to stand for a second five-year term.
Three times in the last 50 years – in 1960, 1971 and 1980 – the Turkish military has seized power from civilian governments whose policies they deemed unacceptable. In 1997, Turkey suffered a “soft coup”, when the military forced prime minister Necmeddin Erbakan out of power for being too Islamic.
Turkey has been a trusted and valued member of NATO for a long time, as it has been an associate member of European economic organisations. Turkey first applied to join what was then the EEC in 1959 and signed an association agreement with it in 1963, which strongly implied that it would later become a member.
The assumption that it is the European Union’s transparent unwillingness to admit a Muslim country, rather than the reluctance of a Muslim people to join a Christian union, that is mainly responsible for the failure of membership-negotiations to make any progress is being steadily revised.
The deal recently negotiated by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, in Brussels on his country’s longstanding quest for membership of the European Union is, by general agreement, unfair and humiliating, and by no means indicates – let alone guaranteeing – that Turkey will eventually be allowed to become a member of the EU.
