Two months and ten days after the July 15th bloody coup attempt, there is almost no doubt anymore about the seriousness of the attack on Turkey’s constitutional order and its elected government.
All international institutions and high-level officials have unambiguously condemned the failed coup and reiterated their support for the legitimate leadership of Turkey.
The systematic and long term penetration of the Turkish judiciary, police and the military by the Gulenists has now been widely acknowledged as unacceptable and sinister.
Yet, Turkey is still aggressively accusing its international partners of double standards and lack of understanding.
Think-tanks, universities and respected institutions in major European cities have been holding almost daily meetings and discussion forums about Turkey. The western media is full of news and comment about Turkey, too.
There have been countless opportunities for Turkey’s diplomats and politicians to argue their case and try to influence the foreign public opinion.
Instead, they use every possible platform to launch attacks and add further tension between Turkey and the outside world.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his address at the United Nations General Assembly this week to slam both the UN and the USA.
Later, in his long interview with Bloomberg , he has not only dismissed all concerns of Turkey’s post-coup rule of law and human rights issues, but caused further alarm by suggesting there was no need for due process in the US in order to fulfill Turkey’s demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen.
“I’m sorry, I can’t wait for the verdict to be issued by a court because this offense has not been committed in the U.S. — it has been committed in Turkey,” Mr Erdogan said.
Rejecting extensively reported violations of freedom of the media and disputing the number of journalists in Turkey’s jails, President Erdogan has claimed those journalists under arrests were all criminals. He argued that some were supporters of the armed organisations; others were caught in possession of weapons.
His truly surprising comments came on his way back to Turkey from New York. Speaking to accompanying journalists on his presidential plane, Mr Erdogan referred to the case of the Iranian wealthy gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is facing charges of conspiring to violate the US sanctions on Iran. Declaring him innocent, Mr Erdogan alluded to a possible conspiracy by the Gulenists and the US judge and the prosecutor of the case, against Mr. Zarrab.
The Turkish courts have been known to lock up journalists for their alleged “subliminal” messages, and its leaders blatantly ignore the democratic principle of “ separation of powers”, but to defend these on an international stage is quite extraordinary.
The outside world is looking for a more convincing, evidence based explanation why the massive crackdown that followed the coup attempt has gone far beyond any justifiable security requirements. Instead, it gets a hectoring lecture.
Ratings agency Moody’s decision to put Turkey’s credit rating in junk territory on Friday was another sign of growing concern over Turkey’s institutional and political direction, despite the relative strength of its economy.
The day before Moody’s announcement, the Turkish president told Bloomberg that credit ratings were based on politics and he did not care at all if Turkey got downgraded.
First reactions in Turkish business circles and among economists to what the Financial Times called “the unkindest cut” were not so complacent. Some called it “subjective”, but almost all agreed that it signaled harder days to come.
In London, an Associate Fellow of the Chatham House International Economics Programme, Dr. Mina Toksoz told me that the most important indicators of country risk showed that Turkey’s “ability and willingness to pay” its foreign creditors still remained strong.
“Hence this rating downgrade by Moody’s should be seen as a pre-emptive move warning about the policy mix of the Central Bank of Turkey continuing to cut interest rates at a time when political risk has clearly risen and institutions are under strain. It is understandable that in the aftermath of the traumatic coup-attempt the government is mostly focused on boosting growth. However, the economic policy team should take heed of world opinion as this may not be sustainable for much longer as global conditions become less favourable for economies like Turkey with large foreign payments gap,” she said.
There is very little indication that Turkey’s leaders care much about the world opinion. Key questions have remained unanswered. Every single day, new and more difficult ones appear.
If the discussions and questions I have heard recently in London are anything to go by, Turkey watchers abroad want to know, first and foremost, how it was possible for the Gulenists to penetrate the state so deeply under the watch of the successive AKP governments and if there was any complicity, why it has not been investigated and exposed so far.
To put it another way, how deep is Turkey’s deep state?
This post is also available in: Turkish
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