Free Republic

US President Barack Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday and congratulated him on his election victory, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. ... Erdogan has vowed to seek compromise with the opposition after his party won a thumping election victory, but fell short of the majority needed to overhaul the constitution. The Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 49.9 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results, its best electoral performance yet and the first time any party has won a third straight term in power while improving its support. But the AKP, in power since...

On October 1, 1939 – two weeks after their invasion of Poland – Winston Churchill described Russia with these memorable words: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key.” Today, as it faces the political and economic realities of the 21st century, the same statement can be made about modern-day Turkey. We happened to be in Turkey during the 2007 re-election of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We traveled all over the country, and we were so enamored with the city of Istanbul that we decided to return this spring. However,...

Initial results showed Turkey's ruling AK Party was on course for a solid victory in Sunday's parliamentary election to give Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a third term, news channels said. With 50 percent of the votes counted, Erdogan's AK had 53 percent and was set to win four more years of single-party rule in the nation that straddles Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The party needs 330 seats to have the power to call a referendum on a promised new constitution. Television projected the party would win 331 seats this time, but the count was fluctuating.

Ambitious TurkeyReasons and tips for showing our displeasure with Ankara's neo-Ottomanism A few days ago, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, grandiloquently proclaimed that “if the world is on fire, Turkey is the firefighter. Turkey is assuming the leading role for stability in the Middle East.� Such ambition is new for Ankara. In the 1990s, it contentedly fulfilled its NATO obligations and followed Washington’s lead. Starting about 1996, relations with Israel blossomed. In all, Turkish policy offered an attractive exception to the tyrannical, Islamist, and conspiracist mentality generally dominating Muslim peoples. That the country’s political leaders were corrupt and fumbling seemed...

In June 2010, the deepening rift between Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) unexpectedly came to the public eye when seventy-two retired ambassadors and consul-generals issued a written statement protesting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's lack of respect in dubbing them "mon chers" and criticizing the government's foreign policy. Why did the prime minister publicly snub his diplomats? By way of answering this question, this article reviews the ongoing rift between ErdoÄŸan and his diplomats before carrying an English translation of the ambassadors' statement and interviews with two retired senior diplomats. ...

Turkey has suspended two generals and an admiral linked to an alleged plot to stage a military coup, according to reports. The three were named in the investigation of an alleged plan to oust the government led by the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), newspapers said, adding it was the first time the government had suspended serving officers. The trial of around 200 members of the military implicated in the 2003 plot is expected to start December 16. Conspirators are accused of planning attacks on mosques and to provoke tension with neighbour Greece, hoping to trigger instability and setting...

You have to hand it to Turkey’s Islamist leaders. They sure know how to get their way. In the seven years since they first took power, the Islamist AKP party has successfully transformed Turkey from a staunch ally of the US and Israel and a member of NATO into a staunch ally of Iran and a member of NATO. And that’s not all. Turkey’s Islamist leaders have used the Western language of democracy and freedom not only to abandon the West. They have used that language to destroy the foundations of Turkey’s Western-style secular democracy and transform the governing system...

Western diplomats say they are alarmed by reports that Mr Erdogan has negotiated a deal with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Tehran to make a substantial contribution to the campaign funds of Turkey's leading Islamic party. Under the terms of the deal Iran has agreed to transfer $12 million to the AKP, with further payments of up to $25 million to be made later in the year. The money is said to be meant to help support Mr Erdogan's campaign for re-election for a third term in next year's general election. The Turkish government denied having received the money from...

Turks show support for AKP policies, including distancing Ankara from Israel and clipping the wings of the generally secular, pro-Israel army. The day after Turkish voters approved a sweeping package of constitutional reforms and gave Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a huge victory, the widespread feeling in Jerusalem was that while this was very much an internal, domestic issue, it will have an impact on Turkish-Israeli relations. Erdogan, who pushed through this packet of 26 constitutional amendments, and for whom this project was as important as the healthcare reform was for US President Barack Obama, must as a result of...

Deep ignorance: Most Turks know nothing about what really happened on the "Mavi Marmara" In May, a ship full of civilians — but not full of humanitarian aid — sailed from Turkey to join the Free Gaza flotilla. Having warned the Mavi Marmara that it would not be allowed to breach the blockade, Israeli commandos raided the ship. In the clash, nine Turks were killed. I've lived in Istanbul for five years and I've spoken to hundreds of Turks about these events. A Turkish documentary filmmaker and I have filmed some of these conversations. Something will immediately strike the...

Extremists: Arab racism, Islamic bigotry (A.K.A. Arab-Israeli conflict) & Erdogan Militant Islamic bigotry & Erdogan Ever since the Islamic party AKP in Turkey won the election , anti-Israel bigotry by Turkish president shows its true colors.Clearly the ISLAMIC PARTY's elected Erdogan was looking for an opportunity to break the alliance.The Flotilla incident, where Islamists (under the guise of "peace humanitarian activism") prepared for matryrdom to kill Jews for Allah (as they screamed) or to die, so that the infidel Zionists look bad, a known Islamists' trick, just as Hamas & Hezbollah use civilians to cause their deaths) was a perfect chance...

As typical Islamist-leftist theater to delegitimize Israel, late May's Turkish-sponsored "Free Gaza" flotilla was tediously repetitious. As an illustration that Israelis don't understand the kind of war they now must fight, the outcome was drearily predictable. But as a statement of Turkey's policies and an augur of the Islamist movement's future, it bristled with novelty and significance.Some background: after some 150 years of faltering efforts at modernization, the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed in 1923, replaced by the dynamic, Western-oriented Republic of Turkey founded and dominated by a former Ottoman general, Kemal Atatürk. Over the next fifteen years, until his...

WORLD’S “MOST DANGEROUS ISLAMIST” ALIVE, WELL, AND LIVING IN PENNSYLVANIA FEDS TURN BLIND EYE TO MOUNTING HOMELAND SECURITY THREAT by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. The most dangerous Islamist in the world is neither Afghani nor Arab. He comes from neither Sudan nor Somalia. And he resides in neither the mountains of Pakistan nor the deserts of the Palestinian territories. This individual has toppled the secular government of Turkey and established madrassahs throughout the world. His schools indoctrinate children in the tenets of radical Islam and prepare adolescents for the Islamization of the world. More than 90 of these madrassahs have...

Over the past few months in Istanbul, the mahalles, or neighbourhoods, endured a ritual aesthetic assault of plastic flags. Every tree, lamppost and building was strung and flossed with ropes attached to the flags of political parties, dripping and flapping in the soppy late winter air. It was local election time in Turkey. Most of the flags were red, the safe colour of Turkish nationalism; those of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were blue, white and orange, and bore their nerdy light bulb insignia. As the flags proliferated, they criss-crossed the sky and blocked out the sun so...

After attending three summits - of the Group of 20 richest countries, NATO and the European Union - President Obama ended his European trip in Turkey. His messages there highlight the importance Washington attaches to this regional player bridging Europe and Asia, a veteran NATO ally, and an influential Muslim country. In his speeches, Mr. Obama emphasized that Turkey is a Muslim nation that respects democracy, the rule of law and is founded on a set of modern principles. In view of the Islamist Justice and Development Party's (AKP) stranglehold on power, this may be an overstretch. .... Until the...

Over the past year, the neo-Islamist AKP government has hosted a series of anti-Western leaders, including the presidents of Iran and Sudan, with whom Ankara seeks closer relations. At the same time, Turkey has ratcheted up its verbal attacks on its traditional Western allies, especially Israel. .... The AKP empathizes with the Islamist regime in Sudan -- which it sees as a victim of the West -- and with the mullahs in Iran because it sees Turkey in religious communion with these states. In March 2006, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed an Arab League summit in Khartoum, saying, "the...

A decade ago, Western and Israeli leaders could count on Turkey as an ally. A solid NATO member, Ankara took decisions based on pragmatic calculations of interest - and erred on the side of caution if at all. But under the rule of the Islamic conservative AKP, this has changed. In the face of Hamas rockets, Israel could have expected more understanding from a country long suffering from aggressive PKK terrorism. The vehemence with which Turkish leaders attacked Israel, and their apparent willingness to convey Hamas' position to the United Nations, came as a surprise to many. Some of this...

Turkey's Constitutional Court has decided not to ban the ruling AK Party, accused of undermining the country's secular system. But the judges did cut half the AKP's treasury funding for this year. The AKP, which won a huge poll victory last year, denies it wants to create an Islamist state by stealth. It called the case an attack on democracy. The powerful military sees itself as the guardian of the modern secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Court president Hasim Kilic said the financial sanctions imposed on the AKP were a "serious warning". At least seven of the 11...

After close to five hours of deliberations, 11 judges of the Constitutional Court decide in a rare unanimous ruling to take up the case for closing the AKP and banning the prime minister and dozens of lawmakers from politics. The government is likely to accelerate efforts to find legal measures to block the closure ANKARA – Turkish Daily News Turkey's top court yesterday agreed to hear a case requesting the closure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is accused of being a focal point of anti-secular activities, in a move that could further strain the political environment...

Turkish top court decided on Monday to accept the lawsuit against the ruling AKP demanding its closure. The lawsuit, which could last up to a year, raised concerns over a prolonged political uncertainity. The 11 judges of the Constitutional Court agreed unanimously to accept the indictment against AKP filed by the country's top prosecutor on March 14, the court's deputy chairman Osman Paksut told reporters. The EU said it took "note" of the development. (UPDATED) Paksut said the judges ruled by a majority vote that President Abdullah Gul, who was a prominent member of the AKP until he was elected...

Turkey is one great theater in the war between modernity and Islamist reaction. In Istanbul one can see radical imams stalking through the Grand Bazaar with fanatical expressions on their faces. Many more women and girls are wearing long coats and scarves in the summer heat, the Turkish version of the burqah. Early Turkish election results now show a forty percent vote for the Islamist AKP, five percent more than last time. It seems that the modernist movement that began with Kemal Ataturk in 1922 may be crumbling before our eyes. Because Turkey is the most democratic country in the...

The young woman who stood at the entrance to the Bayrak Barracks in Ankara wore her long blonde hair uncovered. She introduced herself as the new director of the garrison's kindergarten. But when the soldiers took a look at her ID card, they hesitated. The woman in the photograph was wearing an Islamic headscarf -- and in the strictly secular state of Turkey, women are not allowed to cover their hair when they work in public posts. The guards denied the woman entrance and reported the incident to their superiors. It was the beginning of a long legal dispute which...

On June 8, 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited President Bush in the White House. Among the topics the two discussed were freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush declared Turkey's democracy to be "an important example for the people of the broader Middle East."Turkey remains an important ally of the United States despite recent bilateral tensions over the Iraq war and its aftermath. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have valued Turkey not only as a strategic military partner in the Cold War but also, in recent decades, as a democratic outpost...

Throughout the 1990s, Turkish foreign policy analysts had an easy job. After all, Turkish foreign policy was predictable. Ankara cooperated enthusiastically with Washington, whether in the Middle East or in the Balkans. Turkey aligned itself with Israel and kept at arms length from Middle Eastern neighbors such as Syria and Iran. In Europe, Ankara traded heavily with the European Union (EU) but did not allow the EU to dictate foreign policy. The European Union's frequent allegations and criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey, especially with regard to Turkey's fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) terrorists, soured...

"Turkey's European Union accession process has ceased to be an ambiguous process for the EU and has taken an irreversible direction," says Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey. The "post-Islamist" leader of his anything-but-post-Islamic country has ample reason to feel cocky: Some European leaders treat Turkey's EU membership as a fait accompli that should be supported if it cannot be resisted. Others are far more enthusiastic, and claim that Turkey's membership would be a blessing for the Old Continent. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, thus declared earlier this month that Turkey had fulfilled the required democracy...

Israel's Sharon government is currently embroiled in a heated internal debate over the merits of "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. But another, equally far-reaching crisis may be brewing on the horizon. Since their start in the early 1990s, the military and defense ties between Ankara and Jerusalem have evolved into one of the Middle East's most important geopolitical alliances. But now, that strategic partnership has begun showing signs of serious strain. Angered by Israel's recent offensive against the Hamas terrorist organization, eager to boost ties with Europe and new regional allies, and responding to the demands of its core Islamist...

The 'moderate Islamist' Justice and Development Party (AKP) has swept to power in Turkey's elections while calming fears over its political past and its potential European Union future. Turkey's Justice and Development party (AKP) has secured power with a landslide victory that will allow it to rule without a coalition and amend the constitution. Initial results gave the party 34 percent of the vote, allowing the AKP to form a single government with 360 seats in the 550-seat national assembly The election victory means that the party, with deep Islamic roots, will get the chance to live up to the...