Military coups and Turkey. For years this seemed to be an indissoluble dyad. Even in 2007, when a general election was held, the foreign press, including Italy’s, poured into the country fearing a coup d’état. Nothing of the sort. Erdogan’s AKP’s continuous victories seemed to be a sign of stability and of a democratic process that appeared to have quashed the danger of military intervention that until just a few years ago had characterised Turkish history.
There have been 17 terrorist attacks in 12 months, in which 300 people died and about 1,000 were wounded. The suicide bombers who attacked Ankara’s airport carried out the sixth attack of 2016, a trail of blood and death that decreed the profoundly comatose state of Turkey’s tourism. The words spoken by the Minister for Tourism, guaranteeing that “all security measures to prevent further attacks have been implemented”, will not be enough to bring tourists back to Turkey. Among the elements that President Erdogan will not be able to underestimate anymore when drafting a “list of priorities” that Ankara intends to pursue to ensure a future without terrorism and relaunch Turkey’s image there is the resumption of negotiations with the Kurds and a zero tolerance policy as far as jihadists are concerned. This would mark a change of direction essential for the pacification of a country that, over the past years, has all too often found itself counting the victims of massacres that could (maybe) have been avoided.
On March 18 the European leaders agreed on a plan with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants to Europe, called the EU-Turkey Statement, which is well know by now for its controversy. The deal was presented as the last resort for the EU to address the migration crisis amid growing division among the member states on how to handle it. During the summer of 2015, confrontation among member states grew, as two opposing strategies revealed different visions to address the migration crisis.
The result of the elections in Turkey was surprising for two main reasons, the downturn experienced by the governing Justice and Development Party – Erdoğan’s AKP – and the pro-Kurdish HDP’s arrival in parliament, also representing in a broader manner the Turkish democratic and pluralist left. The challenge was not an easy one due to the enormous disproportion of resources and the very loud and violent tone of the electoral campaign. Furthermore, there was the 10% threshold established following the 1980 coup d’état, which for decades altered real representation in parliament.
Lapo Pistelli interviewed by Francesco Bravi22 August 2014
Deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli is the Italian government’s delegate for the Middle East and in the past was a professor and OSCE representative as well as being a former member of the Italian and European parliaments’ Foreign Affairs Committees. Pistelli’s long summer started when he returned to Italy with the last flight out of Erbil before U.S. air strikes on ISIS jihadists began. There he saw first-hand Iraq’s wounded image in refugee camps, filled with those who had already abandoned everything to flee the men led by “Caliph” al-Baghdadi, and were now preparing to flee once again. Today, he believes, such an international crisis or the decision-making system in place called upon to remedy matters, are no longer issues to be addressed by desk-strategists, because when events are this harsh, a backlash can only be prevented by the United Nations’ centrality and the flexible of politics and diplomacy.
On March 18 a symbolic funeral march was staged in front of Turkey’s historic left-wing newspaper, the Milliyet, for the silent “death” of one of its most honorable authors. Hasan Cemal, 69 years, “dies” as a provocative columnist after having defended the disclosure of the minutes from a meeting between the representatives of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. The leaked record helped the nationalist front to criticize the government’s negotiation with the Kurdish leader. “If this is journalism, down with it!” cried Prime Minister Erdoğan, and the writer was suddenly suspended.
For many Turks, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a man of the people; born in 1954, he spent his early childhood near the Black Sea coast, moving to Istanbul at 13, where he sold simit (sesame buns) on the streets and played semi-professional soccer. He went on to become the mayor of Istanbul in 1994 in a rags-to-riches tale of hard work and charisma. Now, the third-term prime minister faces undesirable regional and domestic instability.
Marcella Emiliani talks to Ernesto Pagano10 June 2010
President Obama “has not lifted a finger” for the Middle Eastern peace process according to a caustic Marcella Emiliani, expert on the Middle East and associate professor at Bologna University. In spite of the media uproar, the Israeli blitz on the “Freedom Flotilla” has revealed the entirety of the White House’s inability, and that of the whole international community, to restart the peace process. And while Turkey “draws dangerously close to Iran,” the Israeli government, “accustomed to never-ending international isolation,” continues to “move forward on its own path.”
Why has the process of Turkey’s joining the European Union ground to a halt? Does Europe need Ankara? At Resetdoc’s Istanbul Seminars these subjects dominated the round table debate attended, among others, by Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman and French sociologist Alain Touraine.Un articolo di Marco Cesario.
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