Hosted by Kwangu Liwewe
Featuring Diego Cupolo and Gönül Tol
Produced by Finbar Anderson
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Turkey is in a period of major political developments, Diego Cupolo, editor in chief of politics newsletter Turkey Recap, tells New Lines’ Kwangu Liwewe on this week’s episode of Global Insights on The Lede.
“Everything is changing once again,” he says. “I don’t feel that we’ve seen this kind of moment in Turkey since about 10 years ago, when you had a lot of political instability, different kinds of terror threats and you also had the attempted coup in 2016. We feel like we’re going through a huge political shift, and no one knows where it’s headed.”
“The question now is: How do you continue to keep attention on this politician in jail, in a country where there are many politicians in jail?”
Positives can be seen, Cupolo says, in the recently announced peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has committed to giving up its policy of armed struggle against the Turkish state. “At the same time,” Cupolo cautions, “there are worries about the democratic future of the country after [Istanbul Mayor Ekrem] Imamoglu’s arrest.”
Whether or not the arrest of Imamoglu will continue to be a significant political issue is another question, Cupolo notes. “It’s been more than two months since [Imamoglu’s arrest],” he says. “The question now is: How do you continue to keep attention on this politician in jail, in a country where there are many politicians in jail and people just forget?”
For Günöl Tol, founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkish studies program, this arrest is an even more significant issue than the peace process. “Erdogan has taken a huge step towards turning Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime into a Russia-style autocracy, where the ballot box does not matter anymore and the President handpicks his opponent,” she says.
Global geopolitics are at a particular juncture that means Erdogan is unlikely to be restrained, she adds. “The European countries look at Erdogan and they see an increasingly authoritarian leader, but on the other hand they think that they cannot afford to alienate Erdogan at a time when European countries are rebuilding their defense against Russia.”
The situation in Washington does nothing to help, Tol adds. “At a time when Trump is undermining American democracy, obviously no one is under any illusion that he will care about what other autocrats do to their own people.”