The game isn’t over for Erdoğan and the AKP. Now would be a good time for the West to pay attention to what’s going on in Turkey.
The American Interest
June 22, 2015
The euphoria to which Turkey’s June 7 election results have given rise calls to mind an oncology ward patient learning that an experimental protocol might slow the advance of her tumor. The elation is warranted in rough proportion to the desperation of the situation. In other words, good news is, like most things, relative.
Erdoğan’s message to Turks: Vote correctly next time!
By Claire Berlinski and Okan Altiparmak
Politco.eu, August 4, 2015
Don’t forget what’s really at stake for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
On December 17, 2013, the Financial Crimes and Battle Against Criminal Incomes department of the Istanbul Security Directory detained 47 people, including a number of high-level officials.
CITY JOURNAL
Winter 2015
On returning to France after spending almost a decade in Turkey (and not long before the terrorist attacks of January), I discovered that the French—Parisians, in particular—have become surprisingly polite.
I now find myself living in a city in which the following things happen. A kindly Parisienne not only notices that I am mildly lost, but offers to help and insists upon walking with me, well out of her way, to be sure that I am on the right path.
Don’t rejoice yet: Erdoğan could still win
Forming a coalition in Turkey will be a nightmare, and the strongman has the trump cards.
Politico.eu, June 15, 2015
For 13 years, the escape routes from Turkey’s political haunted-house have been shutting one by one. Suffocation seemed inevitable. The June 7 election, which resulted in the first hung parliament since 1999, cracked open a tiny window in the attic.
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
June 4, 2013
The media coverage of the upheaval in Turkey has been extensive, but certain points have been insufficiently emphasized.
The story began as a peaceful sit-in in a park near the city’s central Taksim Square. It was slated to be demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. The protesters wanted to preserve it, but Ankara disagreed.
he Journal of International Security Affairs
December 19, 2012
While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan needs no introduction, the Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen is probably the most important person you’ve never heard about. He is an immensely powerful figure in Turkey, and—to put it mildly—a controversial one. He is also an increasingly powerful figure globally. Today, there are between three and six million Gülen followers.
Ricochet
February 4, 2015
My fellow editors asked me if I’d care to comment on Fethullah Gülen’s op-ed in The New York Times. I was uncertain whether I could do it without violating our Code of Conduct. I considered whether I might be able to get away with a few choice words in Turkish, but thought, “No, the Code of Conduct is sacred in every language.” I decided words like the ones I reckoned this inspired in Turkey really were too trashy.
U.S. News & World Report
July 8, 2013
If you’re reading the American press, you might think that the protests in Turkey have died down. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stranger still, if you are reading the Turkish press, you might conclude that you are in Egypt, because that seems to be the only topic of conversation.
This is why: Conventional wisdom has it that the Egyptian coup was a “nightmare” for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, putting an end to his ambitious foreign policy fantasies.
Continue reading How Turkey’s Leaders Are Exploiting Egypt’s Coup
Erdoğan and Gülen are both dangerous—but only one of them lives in the Poconos.
City Journal
23 December 2014
Until recently, I lived in Turkey. It seemed to me then unfathomable that most Americans did not recognize the name Fethullah Gülen. Even those vaguely aware of him did not find it perplexing that a Turkish preacher, billionaire, and head of a multinational media and business empire—a man of immense power in Turkey and sinister repute—had set up shop in Pennsylvania and become a big player in the American charter school scene.
Ricochet
January 10, 2015
If you check the Drudge Report right now, you’ll see a screaming headline:
EVERY JEW I KNOW HAS LEFT PARIS
It links to an article in the Daily Mail. The claim was made by Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.
Mr. Pollard, it is perhaps true that every Jew you know has left Paris. But it is clearly true that you do not know every Jew in Paris.
I have not left. And I will not. And neither will my father. That is at least two of us. And I know many more.
Continue reading An Update From Paris: This Jew is Still Here, and She is Not Leaving