Who’s Afraid of Turkey?

[BootinUp]

Its next move may favor the West.

Turkey is starting to scare Americans, for good reason. There was the high-profile clash at Davos over the Palestinians, fraying Turkish ties to Israel. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program. Now there’s a new clash with Israel over Turkish support for the convoys challenging Israel’s embargo on Gaza. But just as Turkey is starting to look more assertively pro-Islamist than ever, there are signs that a big internal shift may reshape Turkish politics and redirect its foreign policy back toward the West.

This would end a drift that began in 2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP), rooted in the country’s Islamist movement, came to power. It has grown more authoritarian, and anti-Western, ever since. The NGO that sponsored the Gaza flotilla has close ties to the AKP, has sponsored numerous fundraisers in the Istanbul convention center controlled by the AKP city government, and has been designated by the U.S. as part of an umbrella group of terrorist organizations. Now AKP leaders are pressing the U.S. for a more aggressive response.

But for the first time in years, the AKP faces a real challenge. Turkey’s main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), lately has been a mere shadow of the secular force that once ruled the country and made it a staunch NATO ally. Now the resignation of CHP leader Deniz Baykal over an alleged sex-tape scandal has ushered in a new boss, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a charismatic people’s man who is committed to Western values. He might be the one to rebuild an effective opposition and redirect Turkish foreign policy toward the West.

Kilicdaroglu has already voiced support for Turkey’s effort to join the European Union, which has stalled in part due to European resistance to admitting a Muslim member, but also due to the AKP’s withering interest in the process since Ankara started membership talks in 2005. Kilicdaroglu has backed some of the government response to the latest Gaza incident—it would be impossible for any Turkish politician not to, given that Turkish activists were killed—but he could still bring change in the future.

More...Newsweek

[LakeSamish706]

1. Well I guess that one of these NATO participants needs to decide who is going to

drop out of NATO then. NATO has 28 countries which include both the US and Turkey (no Israel).

[BootinUp]

3. I haven't heard any serious discussion

of Turkey leaving NATO. This article is mostly about internal Turkey politics. Hopefully the author is right and the more secular party will make some headway.

[burnsei sensei]

5. When GW Bush, the usurper,

was talking about going to war in Iraq, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. said "Iraq is a nation of tribes, and the Americans don't understand tribes at all."
I thought that the Turks handled themselves very well in that hysterical atmosphere.
I hope they draw on the fountain of good sense they've almost always shown in foreign affairs.
Having once dominated the Middle East as the Ottoman Empire, they know the region much better than we do.
I have a very cynical acquaintance who, after he had taken a lot of liquor at a party, said that we should give Iraq to the Turks, gift-wrapped.
"They would know how to handle Iraq."
Of course, they would probably also have the sense to drop Iraq like the hot potato it is.

[happyslug]

6. I have been reading of this since e 2002, and every time it has failed.

The problem is that Turkey crushed its left wing/socialists/communists opposition in the 1960s and now the people who supported the left wing/socialists/communists opposition are now supporting the AKP. The AKP has reduced unemployment and the inflation rate, much more then the secular opposition had before the AKP took power. The Inflation rate is still high, but not what it was in 2002 when the AKP won its first election.

As a whole the AKP has done a decent job on the economy, its religious aspects are within the Turkish Constitution (i.e. separation of Church and State is followed by the AKP). The opposition represents the Upper Middle Class of Turkey and has always opposed anything that benefits the Working Class and since 2002 it has used the accusation that the AKP is a religious party to attack the AKP when the main reason for the opposition is the AKP policies that tend to favor the Working Class.

Every time I read about the AKP and its opposition, religion comes up, but never by the AKP, it is always the opposition. The few exceptions involves AKP officials attending Islamic events, something even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Kemel did. This is more a class fight then a religious fight and the opposition has been losing the fight for the AKP seems to have a better idea of how to run the Economy then the opposition has and as long as that is the case the AKP will stay in power. The most likely way for the AKP to lose power is for the Turkish military to over throws it.

The Turkish military has over thrown the elected government of Turkey in the past when a working class party was winning, and each time the excuse for the coup was the opposition was getting to "religious", i.e, the accusation that the AKP is to much a religious party is part of a plan of attack that has worked in the past when the right wing of Turkey wanted a coup. Thus the accusation that the AKP is to religious is part of a plan that has worked before, the main problems today is the lower ranks (including low ranking officers) tend to support the AKP more then the opposition. The big question is what will happen next, will the AKP lose an election do to the people fear that the military will do a coup? If the AKP continues to wins, will the Military do a coup? Or will the AKP stay in power and proceed with what it has been doing? Only time will tell, but it is interesting to watch.

[BootinUp]

7. Here's another article on the same subject

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16219855

snip
Yet most Turkish voters care little about the liberals’ agenda and even less about the outside world. With his pledges of income equality and more jobs, Mr Kilicdaroglu seems bent on appropriating the role of champion of the underdog from AK, so eating into its traditional base in the shanty towns that encircle the big cities. To his credit, he has also promised to lower the threshold of 10% of the vote for parliamentary seats, a figure originally designed to keep out Kurdish parties.

Mr Kilicdaroglu’s strongest card is that he is squeaky clean. He first drew public attention when, running to become Istanbul’s mayor in 2009, he exposed various AK-related corruption scandals. CHP officials claim they have more files up their sleeves on AK associates who worked for Mr Erdogan when he was Istanbul’s mayor in the mid-1990s. They may use them before the general election due next year.

His other advantage may be Mr Erdogan’s hubris. This week Mr Erdogan dismissed the CHP as “tin” whose “gold” varnish had peeled off. He also seemed to take aim at Mr Kilicdaroglu’s faith when he called his supporters in the media “candas” or those who support can (an Alevi term for people). The latest polls suggest that, under Mr Kilicdaroglu, the CHP could take 32% of the vote. That would be enough to deny AK a third term of single-party government.
---------------------------
Sounds to me like the AKP gets its working class support more through its social policy conservatism/rhetoric, and the CHP is the more democratic and liberal party.

[elias7]

2. Would Israel be foolish not to consider the presence of hidden arms in the flotilla?

I find that the knee-jerk Israeli defenders have an equal and opposite force in the knee-jerk Pro-Palestinian proponents. Condemnation or defense of an act is easy when you've picked a side.

It would be refreshing to see a real discussion rather than the unnuanced partisan clamoring that characterizes DU when it comes to Israel-Palestinian affairs.

[BootinUp]

4. I hope it won't be attempted in this thread.

;)