{"id":28749,"date":"2016-09-25T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T07:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=28749"},"modified":"2016-09-25T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T07:33:29","slug":"what-is-it-the-world-does-not-understand-about-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/what-is-it-the-world-does-not-understand-about-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"What is it the world does not understand about Turkey?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months and ten days after the<\/strong> July 15th<\/sup> bloody coup attempt, there is almost no doubt anymore about the seriousness of the attack on Turkey\u2019s constitutional order and its elected government.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

All international institutions and high-level officials have unambiguously condemned the failed coup and reiterated their support for the legitimate leadership of Turkey.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet, Turkey is still aggressively accusing its international partners\u00a0<\/strong>of double standards and lack of understanding.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There have been countless opportunities for Turkey\u2019s diplomats and politicians to argue their case and try to influence the foreign public opinion.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, they use every possible platform to launch attacks and add further tension between Turkey and the outside world.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his <\/strong>address<\/strong><\/a> at the United Nations General Assembly this week to slam both the UN and the USA.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Later, in his long interview with <\/strong>Bloomberg<\/strong><\/a> , he has not only dismissed all concerns of Turkey\u2019s post-coup rule of law and human rights issues, but caused further alarm by <\/strong>suggesting<\/strong><\/a> there was no need for due process in the US in order to\u00a0fulfill\u00a0Turkey\u2019s demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, I can\u2019t 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,\u201d Mr Erdogan said.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rejecting extensively reported violations of freedom of the media and disputing the number of journalists in Turkey\u2019s jails, President \u00a0Erdogan has <\/strong>claimed <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0those journalists under arrests were all criminals. He argued that some were supporters of the armed organisations; others were caught in possession of weapons. <\/strong><\/p>\n

His truly surprising \u00a0comments<\/a> 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 \u00a0US judge and the prosecutor of the case, against Mr. Zarrab. \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Turkish courts have been known to lock up journalists for their alleged \u201c<\/strong>subliminal<\/strong><\/a>\u201d messages, and its leaders \u00a0blatantly ignore the democratic principle of \u201c separation of powers\u201d, but to defend these on an international stage is quite extraordinary.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ratings agency <\/strong>Moody\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> decision to put Turkey\u2019s credit rating in junk territory on Friday was another sign of growing concern over Turkey\u2019s institutional and political direction, despite the relative strength of its economy.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The day before Moody\u2019s announcement, the Turkish president told Bloomberg that credit ratings were based on politics and he did not care at all if Turkey got downgraded.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

First reactions in Turkish business circles and among economists to what the Financial Times <\/strong>called<\/strong><\/a> \u201cthe unkindest cut\u201d were not so complacent. Some called it \u201csubjective\u201d, but almost all agreed that it\u00a0signaled\u00a0harder days to come.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In London, an Associate Fellow of the Chatham House International Economics Programme, Dr. Mina Toksoz<\/a> told me that the most important indicators of country risk showed that Turkey\u2019s \u201cability and willingness to pay\u201d its foreign creditors still remained strong.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHence this rating downgrade by Moody\u2019s 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<\/em>,\u201d she said.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is very little indication that Turkey\u2019s leaders care much about the world opinion. Key questions have remained unanswered. Every single day, new and more difficult ones appear.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To put it another way, how deep is Turkey\u2019s deep state?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s constitutional order and its elected government.\u00a0 All international institutions and high-level officials have unambiguously condemned the failed coup and reiterated their support for the legitimate leadership of Turkey.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28752,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28749\/revisions\/28752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}