Turkey in the News

For the second time this month, terror in Istanbul dominated the foreign media coverage of Turkey. Three suicide bombers killed 44 people at Ataturk airport—Europe’s third-busiest hub—late on Tuesday night, just three weeks after a dozen were killed on a busy street in Sultanahmet. English-language press highlighted not only the gruesome details of the attack, but also the increasing frequency of terror-related incidents in Turkey—news that continues to damage the West’s former perception of Turkey as a stable nation in a sea of regional conflict. With headlines like “Is Turkey Safe for Tourists?” (The Telegraph) and the U.S. now banning family members from accompanying Turkey-based military personnel, the new reputation is beginning to stick. (CNN, New York Times, Reuters, NPR)

Speaking of tourism, Turkey’s near-empty resorts may soon get their Russian patrons back—a tentative détente between the two nations has prompted Vladimir Putin to lift a ban on chartered tours to Turkey. Putin had barred Russian citizens from visiting Turkey after a Russian jet was shot down on the Turkish side of the Syrian border in November. Earlier this week, however, President Erdogan unexpectedly called his Russian counterpart to apologize for the incident, thawing diplomatic tensions for the first time this year. Tourism would need to rebound drastically, however, to salvage the damage already done—a few weeks ago, Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that overall arrivals could drop by as much as 40 percent this year. (BBC, The Guardian, Time, RT, Foreign Policy)

Turkey and the European Union’s unpredictable diplomatic dance continued this week, as news broke Thursday that another chapter in Turkey’s application to join the bloc has been opened. Chapter 33, which covers budgetary and finance issues, will now be negotiated—but any prospect of Turkey’s realistic accession to Europe is still years, if not decades, away. Only one of the 35 chapters has been closed, and five are stalled due to unsolved territorial disputes with Cyprus, which is an EU member state. Europe has told Turkey that tackling corruption and easing its broadly-applied terrorism legislation are preconditions for consideration by the bloc. A deal struck in March that would have given Turkish citizens visa-free travel in Europe’s Schengen Area has already been thwarted by Turkey’s refusal to modify that same terrorism legislation. (BBC, Express, Wall Street Journal, Hurriyet Daily News)

Other Turkey-related stories in the international press:

– Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders, has been released from detention following ten days being held on “terrorist propaganda” charges—for merely acting as a guest-editor for a pro-Kurdish newspaper. Sebnem Korur Fincanci, an academic and activist, was freed, too. 

– Following Turkey and Israel’s rapprochement—the second high-profile diplomatic reconciliation this week—President Erdogan retroactively chided the organizers of the 2010 flotilla to Gaza that soured the two countries’ relationship: “Did you ask me before you set sail?”

– Sticking with the Middle East, Israel’s minister of energy announced that the nation’s natural gas could start flowing to Turkey within several years.

– A federal judge in the U.S. has thrown out a lawsuit against Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric and erstwhile critic of President Erdogan. The lawsuit, which was funded by Turkey and claimed that the cleric’s Hizmet organization had perpetrated human rights abuses, was called “pure political theater” by Judge Robert Mariani on Wednesday.

– Al-Monitor’s Ufuk Sanli chronicles Erdogan’s troubling path to becoming Turkey’s media boss over the past year.  

– Late on Thursday night, the Turkish parliament passed a controversial bill reshuffling the judicial structure of Turkey’s justice system. The move is a win for President Erdogan, who critics say will use the new structure to move around judges according to his preference.

Opinion and Commentary About Tuesday’s Terror Attack

Leela Jacinto, in Foreign Policy: “The government may intimidate the press from reporting the story, but there’s no escaping the fact that Turkey has incontestably, irrevocably turned into Jihadistan.”

Roger Cohen, in The New York Times: “Here’s a sobering thought: Erdogan, the would-be leader of the Sunni world, after 13 years in power, alone in his vast palace with his neo-Ottoman dream in shreds and Turkish society polarized to the point of violence.”

Matt Ayton, in The Independent: “It is a casual assumption, informed by lazy generalisations about the Arab or Muslim world – including Turkey – that violence is and will always be, an intrinsic part of life in the Middle East.”

Simon Tisdall, in The Guardian: “It seems plain that Erdoğan’s preference for blaming everything bad that happens on the Kurds is no longer working, that Turkish civilians are paying a terrible price for his wilful blindness to the jihadi threat, and that Turkey’s leaders must banish any remaining ambivalence and confront the Isis menace full on.”