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Un año agitado en Turquía

Jul 19, 2017 Carl Bildt

ESTOCOLMO – Ha pasado un año desde que fracasó el golpe de estado en Turquía, y todavía abundan las interrogantes sobre el futuro del país.

Al intento de golpe del año pasado no le faltó dramatismo. Los aviones F-16 rebeldes bombardearon el parlamento turco y 249 personas perdieron la vida. Pero no lograron detener al presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan, quien movilizó a sus propios partidarios y selló el destino del golpe. Si el golpe no hubiera sido bloqueado en las primeras 48 horas, probablemente Turquía habría caído en una devastadora y violenta guerra civil, cuyas consecuencias se habrían extendido mucho más allá de sus fronteras.

Hoy en día, es difícil encontrar a alguien en Turquía que tenga dudas de que la sublevación fue instigada por fuerzas leales al enigmático clérigo musulmán asentado en Pensilvania Fethullah Gülen. Todas las pruebas disponibles parecen apoyar esta conclusión. Cuando Erdogan y su Partido de la Justicia y Desarrollo (AKP) llegaron al poder democráticamente en 2002, unieron sus fuerzas con los gülenistas para revertir el antiguo sistema autoritario de Turquía y apuntalar la democracia turca con miras a unirse a la Unión Europea.

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Carl Bildt

Writing for PS since 2009
55 Commentaries

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to October 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe.

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j. von Hettlingen Jul 22, 2017

Carl Bildt reminds of Turkey's geostrategic relevance to Europe, despite political turmoil and the country's departure from liberal values that need to be observed during its accession to the European Union.
Straddling the continents of Europe and Asia, no doubt Turkey serves as a wedge between the Middle East and the EU. Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria following the Arab uprising, the Middle East is engulfed by a sectarian strife, pitting Iran against Saudi Arabia that fight proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's sectarian policy is partly blamed for the turbulences in the Middle East. The question is whether the region would have been less violent, had Turkey not brought the ruling AKP - an Islamist party - to power in 2002.
Erdogan spent 11 years as Turkey's prime minister before becoming the country's first directly-elected president in August 2014. He wasn't content with just a ceremonial role and orchestrated a constitutional change earlier this year that allowed him to amass significant powers. During the first half of his tenure as prime minister economic growth had made him popular among ordinary Turks. But he has also become an autocratic leader intolerant of dissent and harshly silences anyone who opposes him. He relies on a conservative and religious base in mostly rural areas to sustain power and cement Turkey's identity as an Islamist republic.
Turkey became a secular republic in 1923 with its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as its president. He launched a programme of revolutionary social and political reform to modernise Turkey. These reforms included the emancipation of women, the abolition of all Islamic institutions and the introduction of Western legal codes, dress, calendar and alphabet. Abroad he pursued a policy of neutrality, establishing friendly relations with Turkey's neighbours.
Atatürk's single party rule lasted almost without interruption until 1945. Progress towards democracy and a market economy halted after Ataturk's death in 1938, and the army - seeing itself as guarantor of the constitution - repeatedly ousted governments seen as challenging Atatürk's secular values. After a decade in power, Erdogan sent the army back to its barracks and out of politics.
Erdogan's 2013 brutal crackdowns on protesters, his proposed changes to the national curriculum, that cast doubts on science, and his ruthless purge of opponents following last year's botched coup have alienated the EU. His war on Kurdish separatists, who have been waging a guerilla since the 1980s, has become an obsession. Kurds make up about a fifth of the population, and they accuse the Turkish state of seeking to destroy their cultural identity.
Many Europeans aren't convinced that Turkey is eligible to become a EU member. Joining the EU has been Turkey's longstanding ambition. Membership talks were launched in 2005, but progress has been slow. Despite setbacks Erdogan still sees the EU as a hope for Turkey's future, because it needs investment and technology to boost growth. Perhaps Erdogan's vision of Europe is a Turkish one. In March, ahead of the controversial referendum to change the constitution in his favour, he campaigned in the Netherlands. Calling Turks the “future of Europe,” he implored his compatriots living there to have multiple children as an act of taking over the continent and of revenge against - what he sees as - the West’s “injustices.”
It's true that Turkey will soon have a "population of 100 million," and "impressive economic potential." The author says: "The history of Europe can’t be written without Turkey any more than Turkey’s future can be extricated from Europe’s." Yet it's unclear what he suggests, when he says: "It is still not too late to take another path – but time is running out." It's up to the Turks to deal with Erdogan - to unseat him at the ballot box - before Turkey could be taken seriously as a EU-candidate.
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artheek vijay Jul 20, 2017

WHY DONT THE AUTHOR LOOK AT INDIA WITH BJPGOVERNMENT FOR 10 OR MORE YEARS?
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Steve Hurst Jul 19, 2017

George Orwell would have loved the EU
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Bernhard Kopp Jul 19, 2017

Ever since Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for Literatur in 2006 everybody who was not brain-damaged was able to understand that Erdogan/AKP never wanted a liberal, law-based democracy for Turkey. They never wanted to 'europeanize' the Turkish population, they always just thought that the EU would be an easy cash cow for economic development. We should be glad that this is over.
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Steve Hurst Jul 19, 2017

And the EU is seeking, or at the very least has sought, the entry of Turkey into the EU.

As it is acknowledged Turkey is in a boundary condition between Europe and the Middle East, so where does Europe end the the Middle East Start. That should give some idea of the European Union spread, or the name should be changed
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