Turkey in International Media

 
Erdoğan’s authoritarianism and love of splendour affect polls.
 
Erdoğan’s dream of gaining a supermajority in the June 7 general elections is now a pipedream according to an article by Foreign Affairs. With 330 parliamentary seats Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) would be able to change the constitution and establish a “Turkish-style” presidential system with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a head of state with strong executive powers. However, a survey by Turkish polling company “Metropoll” suggest 59 per cent of the respondents do might not vote for such a project in a referendum.
 
The German daily Welt bemoans the loss of a moderate wings within AK Party as well as Erdoğan’s pasha style of leadership. The opposition HDP politician Demirtaş goes one further, warning of an “Erdoğan dictatorship”.
 
Others attribute AKP’s loss of support within society to the party’s love of luxury. Last week, Finance Minister Şimşek hit the headlines by calling  a new € 300.000  official car for Mehmet Görmez, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate mere “chickenfeed” in comparison to Turkey’s economic potential. President Erdoğan’s ostentatious palace in Ankara came into the headlines again after Turkey’s highest administrative court declared the building illegal and in violation of building codes.  The court upheld the Ankara Chamber of Architects’ claim that the building interfered in the protection of a nature reserve and of historical monuments.
 
Kurdish liberals give President Erdoğan the shivers ahead of the general elections.
Five days ahead of the general elections in Turkey opinion polls suggest that the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HDP) are poised to win the 10% threshold of total votes which they need to enter the parliament. Not just pious Kurds and even entire tribes parted ways with Erdoğan’s AKP. HDP’s chairman and former human rights activist Selahattin Demirtaş however has broadened the party’s appeal to include non-Kurds- including intellectuals, academics and businessmen sceptical about Erdoğan’s growing authoritarianism.
 
Nervous about HDP’s increasing acceptance as the progressive force within society Erdoğan has tried every tactic to prevent the pro-Kurdish party from entering into parliament. In a smear campaign AKP discredited Demirtaş for being an infidel after he admitted to German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to having eaten three slices of bacon during a trip to Cologne.
 
On Monday, May 18, two simultaneous bomb attacks hit the HDP bureaus in the cities of Adana and Mersin. The bombs went off just minutes before Demirtaş’s expected arrival leaving six people injured.
 
Were HDP to enter parliament, this would destroy Erdoğan’s plans to establish a presidential system. If the party fails to get in, Demirtaş announced to stand down as party leader. Some newspapers speculate AKP might form a coalition with the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to be able to govern. Writing in Foreign Policy professor for international relations Henri Barkey even speculates that a defeated Erdoğan might engineer a state of emergency. Even victory might not bring stability with the possibility of mass Kurdish civil disobedience should HDP fail to clear the 10% threshold.
 
Three Turks accused of espionage in Germany.
The German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office charged two Turks and a German national of Turkish origin with espionage. The trio is suspected of having spied on PKK-members and Yezidis in Germany between 2013-14 on behalf of MİT, the Turkish intelligence service. One of the informers is Muhammed Taha Gergerlioğlu, a former advisor of President Erdoğan. Before his alleged secret service activity in Germany, Gergerlioğlu was working for Prime Minister Davutoğlu and was a board member of sate-owned Halk Bank.
 
President Erdoğan intimidates foreign media and critical journalists.
In a televised speech President Erdoğan reacted to an opinion editorial entitled “Dark Clouds Over Turkey” published by The New York Times. The article accused Erdoğan of a crackdown ahead of the June 7 general elections. Referring to the president’s attack on the Doğan Media Group for reporting on the death sentence of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the comparison to the Turkish president, the article spoke of Mr. Erdoğan’s “long history of intimidating and co-opting Turkish media”.
 
On Monday, May 26, Erdoğan told the US-American daily to “know its place” and accused it of “overstepping the limits of freedom.” In a signed op-ed two political scientists, Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman listed Erdoğan among a group of “soft dictators” that included Vladimir Putin. The NYT was not the only one to compare Erdoğan with Putin. Cem Özdemir, leader of the German Green Party, called Erdoğan an “authoritarian ruler with Putinesque characteristics”.
 
Only a few days after Erdoğan’s outburst against the NYT, Stephen Kinzer, a former correspondent for the paper was about to receive the honorary citizenship of Gaziantep for his reporting 15 years ago that saved dozens of ancient mosaics from being flooded. A few hours before the ceremony the honorary citizenship has been cancelled by Erdoğan’s office denouncing Kinzer for being “an enemy of our government and our country”. 
 
While national and international journalists bemoan further restrictions on the freedom of the press, in Turkey Ethem Sancak, a media mogul with close links to the government, declared his adoration of Erdoğan.
 
Turkey on-off cooperation with Western allies in Syria
After delays due to differences between Turkey and the USA about the main objective of the train-and-equip programme for Syrian rebels – whether to fight the Islamic State or Bashar al-Assad – the two countries agreed “in principle” to provide air protection for the rebels, Turkey’s foreign minister announced. In February the US and Turkey agreed to train 15,000 Syrians in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar over three years under a $ 500 million dollar programme to provide a ground force to the air bombing campaign against the militant group.
 
While the US military continues its air strikes in Iraq and Syria, accusations that Turkey is supporting radical Islamist in Syria have become more vocal. Suspicions about Turkey providing radical groups with weapons to fight the Assad regime has been revived by a trial of gendarmerie officers and prosecutors in Istanbul. They are being tried for stopping trucks in November 2013 and January 2014 on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Syria and accused of “being members of a terrorist organization.” Some see this as being part of a showcase trial against the followers of Fethullah Gülen and a way of scoring points ahead of upcoming general elections.
 
Turkey’s own press, or more precisely the newspaper Cumhuriyet, documented those lorries were indeed carrying munitions and were most probably chartered by the Turkish intelligence service (MIT) under the guise of carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens in Syria.
 

Tags: erdoğan, general eletions, june 7, kurds, media, turkey