Tag: Recep Tayyip Erdo?an

 The Story:  The Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for President, former Vice President Joe Biden, continues to mull the question who he wants on the ticket...

What was different this time was the rapidly tanking economy and a highly disciplined opposition. The Turkish lira lost 28 percent of its value in 2018 and continues to weaken. Ms. Kocoglu said she and her colleagues understood within an hour of the closing of polls Sunday night that they were watching Turkey’s most momentous change since Mr. Erdogan took power. As of Monday night, results from the High Election Council had still not been fully released and Mr. Erdogan’s party had not conceded defeat in Istanbul. But the tally showed the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, ahead with 99 percent of the votes counted. He made 10 public statements of his lead through the night. CHP supporters have often questioned why their leaders have seemed to hand election after election to Mr. Erdogan. Then people inside Mr. Erdogan’s party headquarters posted screenshots taken from AKP computer monitors showing the opposition candidate in Istanbul leading the race. By accepting the election result, Mr. Erdogan has saved the reputation of the Turkish electoral system, which has given him legitimacy over the last 17 years, Mr. Unluhisarcikli said. Ms. Kocoglu said that the election was a critical victory for the opposition since no further elections are scheduled for four years.

U.S. military commanders don’t know what strategy to pursue, Administration officials told TIME. “The back and forth is painful.” Trump’s latest pronouncement, Monday on Twitter, suggested that the U.S. military mission in the war-torn country was open-ended. “We will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!” he wrote. “The timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement.” Trump’s initial impromptu decision, hastily made during a Dec. 14 phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has become the latest example of Trump’s reliably inconsistent presidency. It was a decision made contrary to the advice of top U.S. generals and national security advisers. We won,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. In May 2017, Trump revealed classified intelligence when he again went off-script and invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office, according to a Post report. In March 2018, Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his re-election, despite being specifically warned not to do so by national security adviserd. That same month, the White House suspended the long-held practice of publishing public summaries of the President’s phone calls with world leaders. Trump may not entirely subscribe to past U.S. presidents’ tendency toward strategic predictability, but it’s his prerogative whether or not to heed the advice of advisers, said David Priess, a former CIA analyst and author of “The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents.” “We elect a president, not a bureaucracy, to execute policy,” he said.

Two former associates of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn have been charged with "covertly and unlawfully" trying to influence American politicians in a plot to extradite a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. Bijan Kian, 66, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, were charged Monday with conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government. Flynn does not appear in the indictment by name but is referred to as "Person A" and described as having a key role in the plot that prosecutors say was orchestrated by the Turkish government. The charges were brought less than two weeks after Flynn was described in court papers as having provided substantial assistance in several investigations. Flynn, in pleading guilty to lying to federal investigators last year, also admitted to making false statements about his foreign lobbying work. "He claimed to be a man of God who wanted to be a dictator." According to the indictment, the defendants used Flynn's firm, the now-dissolved Flynn Intel Group where Kian was a partner, to damage Gulen's reputation and kept secret that the work was directed by the Turkish government. "We are ready to engage on what needs to be done," Kian wrote, the indictment says. On a weekly basis, Kian and Flynn held calls with Alptekin to update him on the progress of the project, the court papers say. He has been cooperating with investigators. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has argued that he should receive a light sentence in exchange for his cooperation.

Tuesday was another Election Day in the United States, and the marquee showdown was a special election in Ohio’s 12th congressional district. It went decisively for President Trump in 2016. “Republicans will need to find a way to win back suburbanites or better galvanize rural voters,” wrote the New York Times. The push for Brexit and the electoral gains of the far right in France and Germany all required the mobilization of voters living outside major urban centers. Town and country divisions — and the cultural enmities they foster — stretch back to antiquity. In rural areas, about 40 percent of both college whites and non-whites saw a positive impact, compared to only about one-fourth of non-college whites.” In European parliamentary democracies, the segment of the population animated chiefly by anti-immigrant fears usually gets relegated to a junior seat at the table. But in America’s antiquated system of gerrymandered districts and the electoral college, less-densely populated parts of the country are favored over denser ones — a political reality crucial to Trump’s victory. “Democrats have become the party of the multicultural city, Republicans the party of the monocultural country — the party of urbanization-resistant white people.” It’s a dynamic, Wilkinson argues, that is toxic for American democracy in the long run. And it masks the extent to which the collective story of America — of both its glories and its inequities — is an increasingly urban one. The vast urban, middle-class support behind India’s right-wing nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, shows that cities aren’t always crucibles of liberalism.

President will gain new powers after election, though the balance in parliament could play a key role in Turkey's political future ISTANBUL, Turkey - A year after Turkey voted to leave behind decades of parliamentary politics for a presidential system, citizens have again found themselves preparing for an election with implications that go far beyond choosing their next leader. Polls indicate an Erdogan victory against his rival Muharrem Ince; predictions are mixed as to whether the AKP, in coalition with their former opponents, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will secure a majority in parliament. "All the opposition parties are saying if they win, they'll rein back power." The executive presidency that will begin after the 24 June election will abolish the prime minister's office, transfer the role of drafting the budget from parliament to the president, and give greater control over the civil service. Turkey's opposition parties with often conflicting ideologies have formed an alliance to oppose Erdogan and the AKP, and while questions remain over their ability to work together, they are united by their shared rejection of the presidential system in the 2016 referendum. Leftist journalist Umit Kivanc believes any changes would hinge on whether parties can work together despite hostile pasts, questioning whether the secular CHP can co-operate with the religiously rooted Saadet Party or whether the nationalist Iyi Party and Kurdish People’s Democratic Movement can tolerate each other. Some commentators believe that losing a majority in parliament could see an internal review of the AKP's unconditional support of Erdogan, which has seen him emerge as the party's sole leading figure. "The team he started his political career with - very few of them are together with him right now," said conservative political commentator Izzet Akyol. MHP is directly a state organisation," he said. "As 'the master' of great election victories, Erdogan will have no problem reining in enough democratic support for the new presidential government system," he wrote.

Below is a transcript of the interview, with the president’s remarks translated from Turkish: GJ: There are so many questions about what’s happening with the Turkish lira. Therefore, I will take the responsibility as the indisputable head of the executive with respect to the steps to be taken and decisions on these issues. I want to hear your thoughts about whether or not when you talk about a change in the interest rates framework for Turkey after the elections that this is what you’re talking about. : At the moment of course either that way or this way, you are the head of the executive in the country. The indications are that Turkey will face sanctions from the U.S. as soon as those missiles arrive in Turkey. GJ: Can I talk about Halkbank for just a moment? GJ: Sorry to dwell on the point, but if that is your point and the Turkish state were to be declared a criminal, would the Turkish state be prepared to pay the fine? But, we take these steps in order to protect my country’s interests, we will do whatever my country’s interests require. In other words, we know what the interest rate policies are and are not in all the countries in the world. GJ: Just to stay with politics a moment longer, what do you think the result will be in the region of the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran by the U.S.?

So when a newish soccer team that he is overtly promoting lost 2-0 to Galatasaray — one of the country’s big three teams — in a Turkish Super League match on Sunday, his opponents reacted with glee. Cemal, a prominent opposition columnist and die-hard Galatasaray fan, tweeted: “This victory is in a different league.” An angry Erdogan supporter riposted, “Recep Tayyip Erdogan will score the real goal in the 2019 [presidential] election.” The lineup on both sides broadly mirrored the deepening polarization in Turkey, with the conservative Islamic values Basaksehir on one side, and Galatasaray — a team favored by the pro-secular, urban elite and middle classes — on the opposite. Galatasaray is also supported by millions of Kurds because the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is a big fan. At the end of the fixture, thousands of Galatasaray fans began chanting, “We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers,” referring to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. But for now, that’s a long shot. The match was soaked in politics from the minute Erdogan pulled up at his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Basaksehir branch a day before the game took place. “We want Basaksehir to aim for the championship in the politics league just as in the soccer league,” he said. He then proceeded to scold officials for failing to secure a big enough audience at games played at the Basaksehir stadium. It was rebranded in 2014 as Basaksehir Medipol and was infused with cash, allegedly by Erdogan's businessmen cronies. Many of its streets were named after Muslim thinkers.

Turkey's foreign minister said Friday that President Trump told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the U.S. would no longer supply arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters. According to The Associated Press, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he was with Erdogan when Trump vowed in a telephone call to stop supplying weapons to Kurdish fighters in Syria, known by the initials YPG. “Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions and that the YPG won’t be given arms, and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago,” Cavusoglu said in a news conference, according to the AP. The claim that Trump promised to stop arming the YPG appeared to take some U.S. officials who work on issues in the region by surprise, the AP reported. The White House, the State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to the AP's requests for comment. The Turkish government considers the YPG to be terrorists, because of their ties to Kurdish rebels in Turkey. Trump tweeted earlier on Friday that he would be speaking to Erdogan about ongoing issues in the Middle East, saying that it was a "mistake" for the U.S. to "be there in the first place." "Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East," he wrote on Twitter. "I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!"

Trump, Turkey's Erdogan emphasize push for regional stability in call. President Trump and Turkish President Recep Erdo?an stressed their "common commitment" to regional stability in the Middle East during a phone call on Saturday, according to the White House. The brief readout of the call released by the White House said the U.S. and Turkey were working together to increase stability in the region, which is plagued by the crisis surrounding the Syrian civil war. Trump and Erdo?an previously discussed Syria on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in July. The two leaders' relationship has turned tense in recent months. “We want to believe that our allies would prefer [to] be side by side with ourselves rather than with the terror groups,” he said at the time. The Turkish leader's visit to Washington in May also stoked controversy when Erdo?an's body guards were seen roughing up protesters outside of the Turkish ambassador's residence. Various U.S. lawmakers in turn proposed withholding military equipment and visas from Turkey, which is a NATO ally. A grand jury in late August indicted 19 defendants, including 15 Turkish security officials, over charges stemming from the violent attack on protesters. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and ranking member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a letter on Friday to warn the Turkish leader against allowing any violence when he touches down in New York City next week for a U.N. General Assembly meeting.