What to do about Turkey? It is a question once again exercising the minds of politicians and diplomats in Europe and the US, following the failed military coup and last week’s subsequent, sweeping nationwide crackdown ordered by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If Turkey were a country of marginal strategic, economic and regional importance, its internal upheavals would not matter so much. But the situation there is not akin to Yemen, where civil war rages largely unregarded, or even Egypt, which suffered a military takeover in 2013. Turkey is not a part of the Arab Middle East. Nor is it, mostly, a part of Europe, despite its broadly western orientation and alliances. Turkey’s position is unique. It straddles the divide, geographically, culturally and mentally. It has a foot and a hand in both camps. And this is one reason why there are no easy answers to its current, worrying predicament or to questions about its longer-term future.
In the years since 2002, when his Justice and Development party (AKP) first came to prominence (it has held power ever since), Erdoğan has become an increasingly controversial and divisive figure. His popularity with the mass of conservative, working-class, provincial and rural voters, with whom he closely identifies, was not matched among middle-class, better-educated, better-off city dwellers. They see in the neo-Islamist AKP a threat to Turkey’s secular tradition and the liberal, democratic values symbolised by Europe and the EU that they aspire to join. Erdoğan’s active promotion of religious beliefs in everyday public life, and his regressive attitude to the role of Muslim women in society, has combined with growing political authoritarianism and intolerance of dissent. This was exemplified by his brutal suppression of the Gezi park protests in Istanbul in 2013 and swingeing curbs on the judiciary, academia and the media. His unbending ascendancy had split Turkey in two long before the tanks took to the streets.
To suggest, as some have, that Erdoğan brought the coup down on himself is to go too far. But he is rightly criticised for his perceived tolerance of alleged high-level corruption among close associates and relatives that came to light in 2013. Previous purges of supposed plotters in the armed forces and security services, manifested in the suspect trials of hundreds of officers, created deep resentment. His renewed military and political campaign against militants of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) and non-violent supporters of Kurdish rights looks cynical and expedient. It has increased instability rather than the opposite, cementing Erdoğan’s control over parliament while placing enormous strains on the army in the south-eastern theatre. There have been many avoidable fatalities there, on both sides, another possible reason why many senior army officers and soldiers revolted.
Erdoğan’s obsession with the activities of his former ally, Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric whom he accuses of masterminding this month’s machinations, is both long standing and curious. There is no doubt the Gülenists would like to see the back of the president. They might even have conspired to that end. But their influence and numbers are uncertain, their complicity unproved. The suspicion remains that Gülen is a convenient scapegoat to justify Erdoğan’s attempt to silence and intimidate real or potential enemies, to the tune, so far, of 60,000 people arrested, suspended or place under investigation. Whatever AKP spokespeople may say, this is a dangerous over-reaction.
Yet to brand Erdoğan a dictator and blame him for all Turkey’s woes would be foolish and, from a western perspective, counterproductive. He has managed to hold together a country that has a relatively recent acquaintance with democracy and a long intimacy with internal and external strife. He is the elected leader of an elected government. He has presided over a broad improvement in living standards and economic wellbeing, which helps explain his grassroots support. Despite mistakes and miscalculations, he has prevented Turkey being sucked into the Syrian maelstrom. He has (more or less) allied himself with western countries opposed to Isis, he has maintained Turkey’s membership of Nato, and he has kept his head in the face of repeated terrorist attacks in the past year. He has also co-operated, imperfectly and at a price, with European efforts to control the destabilising flow of Syrian and other refugees into the EU.
These are not inconsiderable achievements, from a domestic perspective and when looked at from Brussels, London or Washington. At a time when the Nice atrocity has highlighted the threat posed by Isis-inspired transnational terrorism, it is plain that Europe needs Turkey’s help in stemming the spread of such evil. At a time when the renewed bombardment of Aleppo has brought predictions that Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers are on the brink of winning the Syrian war, it is plain, too, that the US, the Arab states and the western coalition need Turkish solidarity and support in facing whatever may come next. And at a time when a sudden explosion of internal malignity has exposed the Turkish state’s startling fragility, it is evident the Ankara government needs strong working relationships and enhanced mutual understanding with reliable allies in the EU and the US.
The existence of this common ground has long been obvious. What is needed now are ground rules to reboot a relationship that has got badly out of sync. First, Erdoğan should calm down, seek out the coup’s real perpetrators in an orderly and legal fashion and not try to exploit the situation to settle scores with people and organisations not remotely connected to the putsch. Rather than pursue expanded presidential powers, he should publicly acknowledge the primacy of Turkish parliamentary democracy and the pro-Kurdish opposition’s legitimate role, lift the state of emergency, drop his threats to restore the death penalty and halt assaults on free speech by ending the persecution of independent academics, media and journalists.
For their part, the EU countries should offer a genuine partnership to Ankara based on enhanced co-operation over security and counter-terrorism, assisting refugees, addressing the potential problems of a post-conflict Syria and achieving a lasting, internationally underwritten Kurdish settlement that recognises Ankara’s concerns. From this, in time, deeper Turkey-EU integration may flow, underpinned by the US. The coup, its causes and its aftermath nearly destroyed this middle ground. It must now be urgently reinforced.
