Turkey’s Not So Splendid Isolation
by WENDY KRISTIANASEN
“Turkey’s stand is ethical. Our regional policy is one of values, human and democratic, which everyone should agree on. That’s why the coup against [Egyptian president] Mohammed Morsi [on 3 July 2013] was so disappointing.” Yasin Aktay, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chairman for foreign relations, opened our conversation with Egypt and the government’s “ethical stand”, as did everyone I spoke with in and around the AKP. He went on: “We thought the West would isolate the new regime. But it sat and watched the murder of democracy — the massacre [of Muslim Brothers] in Rabia Square and the silencing of the media — which meant opening the way to IS [so-called Islamic State].”
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