Erdoğan’s political catharsis, or pushing old friends away?
Addressing a group of international ombudsmen in Ankara on Sept. 16, President Tayyip Erdoğan tried to assure Turkey’s “Western friends” that the country is a democracy, not an autocracy. He said he wanted to underline this because people who want to undermine Turkey’s march toward an “advanced democracy” are trying to “manipulate” reality to create an adverse impression. Erdoğan particularly mentioned the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has resumed its acts of terror after a pause of three years, as well as the “parallels” (meaning sympathizers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist ideologue living in the U.S.) and their “extensions” in politics, media and elsewhere.
More:Erdoğan’s political catharsis, or pushing old friends away? - MURAT YETKİN
