President Erdogan of Turkey appears to have been re-elected President. Technically, this is not good for Greece and Cyprus. Erdogan’s threats to invade the Greek islands remain a concern.
The rise of Islam and the downfall of the Kemalist establishment in Turkey put enormous strain on Turkish relations with America and Europe, but did not bring about a complete break. This is a tremendous disappointment as the west still refuses to see Turkey as an enemy. On the other hand, the restoration of Kemalist rule in Turkey would repair Turkish relations with the west. At least with Erdogan, tensions remain.
Kemal Kilikdaroglu is more dangerous than Erdogan. He opposed Erdogan from the right and from the left. From the right, he denounced Erdogan as soft for not ending the Greek “0ccupation” of the islands. From the left, because he is a secularist and this appeals not only to American and European leaders, but to many Turkish secularists. Technically, he would probably have been less of an authoritarian than Erdogan.
But then this is a lethal mix that is more threatening to Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia. The image of a westernized Turkey did the Christians enormous harm throughout the twentieth century. Kemal the mass murderer was pro western. Adnan Menderes and Bulent Ecevit were westernized and received support from the west.
In order to maintain Turkey as a western ally, the Greeks and the Armenians were repeatedly sacrificed. Erdogan should not make us forget the previous eras when Turkey was repeatedly praised as a democracy despite its history of genocide and external acts of aggression. There really was a no win situation here.
Even so, Kilicdaroglu was the greater threat over the long term. Erdogan will probably continue to be a threat, but there will be advantages in the fact that he is unstable and unlikely to fully repair the breach with the west and Russia. Throughout his long tenure, Erdogan nearly started wars with Israel, Russia, and the United States.
This at least gives us hope that a final breach with the west is possible. A Kemalist restoration would make Turkey invincible. It would have shown that Turkey had strayed for twenty years but came back again because westernization had been too entrenched. No, the defeat of Kemalism is a good thing and the elections may show over the long term that the Turkey the west supported for decades is not coming back.
On this basis, the Turkish election results are good news.
2 replies on “The Turkish Elections”
This benefits Russia in that Turkey is not abiding by Western Sanctions and will provide much needed foreign exchange for Russia. As for Greece, I think it’s a benefit, because the West and particularly America don’t like Erdogan and this will help Greece in it’s foreign policy in the region. I’m not convinced Kilicdaroglu was strong enough to create issues for Greece by himself, but no question the Kemalists he appointed to his key positions would have been. On balance, a good outcome for Russia, a ‘better’ outcome for Greece. I’d like to note this also reflects badly on Turkey’s ‘democracy’-Erdogan and his AKP party control the TV news media, most newspapers, the police, the military, the Courts, the bureaucracy and the Central Bank. How can you have a fair election under those circumstances? You can’t. The perception will be that Erdogan ‘stole’ this election, which is probably not far from being true. That perception also benefits Greece.
I have to think that Erdogan will continue to create problems for the US and Russia at some point. At least I hope so.