Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a vision for a “new Turkey”
where he would preside over the country and build a regional military,
political and cultural powerhouse from his sprawling new $600 million
presidential palace in the capital of Ankara.
But brawls in parliament over Mr. Erdogan’s proposal to give more power to the security services, growing charges of his authoritarianism and blowback over his perceived reluctance to confront the Islamic State militants have become hurdles in the way of Turkish leader’s lofty strongman ambitions.
At a time when the Obama administration could desperately use Ankara’s aid in its struggles across the Turkish border in Iran and the Syrian-based Islamic State, Turkey and its Islamist president seem far more consumed by domestic strife and internal political struggles than by the broader violence and rising chaos in the region it once dreamed of dominating.
“When you put all things together, the place of the president seems not particularly secure,” Bilgi University political scientist Ilter Turan told The Washington Times. “The president seems to be in a paranoid mood where he sees a conspiracy against him and his government often backed by foreign powers.”
Mr. Erdogan, who has dominated the Turkish political scene for more than a decade as prime minister and now as president, is pushing a security bill that would allow for arbitrary searches, detentions without charges and liberal rules of engagement that would allow police to use live ammunition at demonstrations if protesters hurl Molotov cocktails and provoke other violence.
Turkey’s opposition parties and international human rights groups have condemned the proposal. In a country once seen as a model for Islamic democracy in the region, heated exchanges among lawmakers debating the bill devolved into fisticuffs and thrown chairs in parliament twice last week.
Read more: Recep Erdogan vision for Turkey undermined by domestic strife - Washington Times
But brawls in parliament over Mr. Erdogan’s proposal to give more power to the security services, growing charges of his authoritarianism and blowback over his perceived reluctance to confront the Islamic State militants have become hurdles in the way of Turkish leader’s lofty strongman ambitions.
At a time when the Obama administration could desperately use Ankara’s aid in its struggles across the Turkish border in Iran and the Syrian-based Islamic State, Turkey and its Islamist president seem far more consumed by domestic strife and internal political struggles than by the broader violence and rising chaos in the region it once dreamed of dominating.
“When you put all things together, the place of the president seems not particularly secure,” Bilgi University political scientist Ilter Turan told The Washington Times. “The president seems to be in a paranoid mood where he sees a conspiracy against him and his government often backed by foreign powers.”
Mr. Erdogan, who has dominated the Turkish political scene for more than a decade as prime minister and now as president, is pushing a security bill that would allow for arbitrary searches, detentions without charges and liberal rules of engagement that would allow police to use live ammunition at demonstrations if protesters hurl Molotov cocktails and provoke other violence.
Turkey’s opposition parties and international human rights groups have condemned the proposal. In a country once seen as a model for Islamic democracy in the region, heated exchanges among lawmakers debating the bill devolved into fisticuffs and thrown chairs in parliament twice last week.
Read more: Recep Erdogan vision for Turkey undermined by domestic strife - Washington Times
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