Turkey in International Media

The three opposition parties expressed reluctance to form a coalition with the Justice and Development Party (AKP), prompting  President Erdoğan to warn about making use of his right to call for new elections. German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suspects a coalition between AKP and the nationalist MHP to be the most likely. Even this would be AKP making major concessions at Erdoğan’s expense. The nationalists will insist as a precondition, the breaking off the peace negotiations with the Kurdish rebel and will insist on investigating corruption allegations against the outgoing government including the notorious case of four AKP-ministers.
 
AKP’s loss of a parliamentary majority has prompted speculation whither former president and founding member of AK Party Abdullah Gül will re-enter politics. The timing of the publication of a set of candid memoirs 12 Years with Abdullah Gül by a former aide, Ahmet Sever, has fuelled rumours about Gül replacing Prime Minister Davutoğlu as party head. Given his more democratic and moderate posture in contrasts sharply with Erdoğan, Gül could lead a coalition supported by a majority of the Turks.
 
Gains over the Islamic State in Syria increase Turkish anxiety about an independent Kurdish state.
After fierce fights with the Islamist group Kurdish militia YPG, linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was able to conquer the town Tal Abyad in northern Syria close to the Turkish border on Monday, June 15. The Kurdish rebels with the help of the US-led coalition were able to cut off the Islamic State’s control over the border-crossing point to the Turkish city Akçakale. The loss of the direct access to Turkey and to their capital Raqqah will make it more difficult for ISIS to get hold of new fighters and weapons.
 
The Turkish government wasn’t happy at all about YPG’s victory. The Kurds success in repulsing ISIS could encourage voices claiming an independent Kurdish state in Turkey, they fear. Government spokesperson Bülent Arinç even spoke of the Kurdish rebels’ “ethnic cleansing” of Tal Abyad. In the last two weeks alone, about 21.000 Syrians fled from the fights towards Turkey resulting in wrenching scenes of refuges being kept from entering Turkey.
 
The fear of rising pan-Kurdish nationalism has raised the spectre of a Turkish military intervention to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state. Or so warned the notorious and anonymous Twitter whistle-blower “Fuat Avni,” who cited details of the Turkish government’s plan to send armed forces to Syria.
 
Expected liberation of oppressed media hasn’t come yet.
As political parties still struggle to form a new government, the old AKP government still uses its power continuing the oppression of media. A court in Ankara sentenced Bülent Keneş, editor in chief of the English newspaper Today’s Zaman, for insulting the Turkish President. Keneş had tweeted that Erdoğan’s mother would be ashamed of the way her son rules.
 
Two German and a Turkish journalists were detained for asking critical questions at a press conference in Akçakale near the Syrian border. Deniz Yücel, correspondent for German WeltN24 questioned the account of İzzettin Küçük, governor of Urfa, that Syrian refugees have been fleeing from the Kurdish rebels of PKK and PYD. Yücel, Özlem Topçu of the German weekly Die Zeit and a Turkish colleague were themselves interrogated for about an hour.
 
Former Turkish President and seven-time Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel died at the age of 90.
On June 17, former Turkish President Süleyman Demirel died of heart failure at Güven Hospital in Ankara. Before his term as president from 1993 to 2000 Demirel served as prime minister for 7 times, two of them ending with his government being overthrown by the military. After his ousting in the 1980 coup, Demirel spent much of the decade banned from politics. However, he re-entered the political arena with the newly founded Truth Path Party and became prime minister again in 1991.
 
Having started his four-decade political career after Turkey’s 1960 coup d’état as member of the centre-right Justice Party (AP) Demirel was always a controversial figure in Turkish politics. Under his regency the country undertook major transformations from an agricultural society to an urban and industrial one resulting in higher living standards for many Turks – an improvement he attributed to his efforts. Critics, however, blame Demirel for introducing a political culture of patronage and graft, where power came before principle.