Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

In the early years of Erdogan’s rule,  when many still fancifully thought that Turkey would join the EU, there was a versatile refrain from European apologists for Erdogan’s dictatorial ways that went like this:
–He may be a strong man, but the economy is growing.
–I don’t personally agree with his cracking down on press freedoms but real wages have risen under Erdogan.
–He is a danger to constitutionality but he has a broad base of support.
–Yes, he is a kind of political Islamist but he speaks for his supporters.

Under a portrait of Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chairs the cabinet meeting, in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, July 25, 2016. (Presidential Press Service/AP)

Şamil Tayyar, a Turkish MP from President Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, agrees with Donald Trump that NATO in its current configuration is obsolete.
But Mr. Tayyar has gone much further than that. In remarks made in the aftermath of the passage of legislation which will confer further strong-man, borderline dictatorial powers upon President Erdogan, Tayyar lambasted NATO, of which Turkey has been a member of since 1952.

As Turkey’s economic and security situations continue to deteriorate, Turkish President Erdogan continues to concentrate ever more power in his hands.

A major factor in pushing Turkish President Erdogan’s government towards rapprochement with Russia rarely gets discussed.  This is the rapidly deteriorating state of the Turkish economy.
At a superficial level this deterioration is reflected in the performance of Turkey’s currency, the lira.  It lost 17% of its value in 2016, and a further 12% of its value in January of this year.

Russian President Putin and Turkish Erdogan had a further telephone conversation today, in what has now become a regular series of such calls.

Fresh evidence of the “confidence crisis” in US-Turkish relations has come with the claim by Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak that recent breakdowns in Turkey’s power supply were caused by cyber-attacks coming from the US

In recent days the Energy Ministry underwent a number of powerful cyberattacks that were conducted from the United States

At the peak of the optimism about the Russian-Turkish rapprochement in the summer rumours circulated of Turkey expelling the US from Incirlik air base in Turkey.
Incirlik is the single most important US and NATO air base in the east Mediterranean region.  Built by US engineers in the 1950s with a 3,000 metre concrete runway,  there are 5,000 US personnel permanently stationed there, in a base equipped with 57 hardened aircraft shelters and which stores US tactical nuclear missiles.

Whilst Turkish officials are busy spreading stories about Russian proposals to carve up Syria and ditch President Assad that have no basis, the Turkish media has been full of stories of Russian warplanes bombing ISIS to help the Turkish army near Al-Bab.

The murderous attack on New Year’s Day on a nightclub in Istanbul is merely the latest in a string of terrorist attacks in Turkey.
Responsibility for the New Year’s Day attack has been claimed by ISIS.  ISIS has also claimed responsibility for previous terrorist attacks in Ankara in October 2015 (which killed 100 people) in January and March 2016 in Istanbul, on Ataturk airport in Istanbul in June 2016 (which killed 45 people) and in August 2016 in Gaziantep (which killed 54 people).