{"id":842,"date":"2014-08-28T02:33:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T02:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=842"},"modified":"2014-08-28T02:33:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T02:33:54","slug":"turkeys-new-era-of-restoration-may-turn-into-reparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/turkeys-new-era-of-restoration-may-turn-into-reparation\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s new era of restoration may turn into reparation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amidst scenes eerily reminiscent of the former Soviet Republics, Turkey\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) elected the outgoing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as its new leader. In a sports arena in the capital, Turkey\u2019s President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan spoke for nearly two hours, outlining his vision of the \u201cNew Turkey\u201d.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by huge posters of himself staring down at his adulating audience of thousands of party faithful, much of Erdogan\u2019s speech was focused on the need to continue with the reshaping of the nation after he takes up the presidency and his determination to remain at the helm of the country.<\/p>\n

“What is changing today is the form, not the essence. The mission of our party, the spirit of its cause, its goals and ideals are not changing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Dismissing suggestions that his preordained successor, Mr Davuto\u011flu would become nothing more than a loyal placeholder, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan insisted \u201cThe AK Party is not a one-man party, it never has been and never will be\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sole candidate, Ahmet Davuto\u011flu received 1382 votes out of 1388, with six votes declared invalid.<\/p>\n

Greeted with much fanfare and a specially composed song<\/a> for himself, with the lyrics \u201cyou are the long-awaited spirit of Sultan Abdulhamid, entrusted to us by the great leader\u201d; Mr Davuto\u011flu took the podium to pledge his loyalty.<\/p>\n

“Erdogan’s legacy is our honour and will be defended to the end,” Davuto\u011flu said, adding \u201cthe convention was not one of farewell, but of fidelity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Introduced as a prominent politician on a global scale, a much admired academic and serious thinker, protector of the world\u2019s oppressed\u201d ,\u00a0 Davuto\u011flu\u2019s\u00a0 convention speech did not give any hint of a recalibration of Turkey\u2019s much criticized\u00a0 foreign policy.\u00a0 Instead, the outgoing foreign minister hit back at his opponents. \u00a0\u201cThey accused us of being utopians and they said we were only dreaming. That\u2019s true, we dream. But those who do not dream should be ashamed\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Continuing the theme of the \u201cNew Turkey\u201d, Mr Davutoglu listed his vision of \u201crestoration\u201d of Turkey to its old glory under nine different headings. Referring to last year\u2019s Gezi protests and the corruption inquiry launched against the government as \u201cplots to destroy the self-confidence his government has instilled in people\u201d, he wowed to restore the state\u2019s authority, to prevent bureaucracy from exercising power over those elected by the people.\u00a0 He promised to continue with the peace process to bring the conflict with the country\u2019s Kurds to an end. He renewed his pledge to work towards European Union membership and he repeated his party\u2019s determination to change the 1982 constitution.<\/p>\n

In a speech full of religious and historical references, Ahmet Davuto\u011flu expressed his desire to restore Turkey\u2019s influence abroad, and moral values at home.\u00a0 He said that the protection of freedoms and preservation of human dignity were crucial to his government; but \u201cevery freedom came with a responsibility. \u201cFreedom of the media requires a moral press; freedom of enterprise requires legitimate earning and freedom of belief requires respect for other beliefs.\u00a0 We will make sure all freedoms have a new moral formation\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

By denying accreditation to 12 media outlets, all of them considered to be \u00a0oppositional; the AKP government gave its first signs of the promised \u201cnew era of restoration\u201d.<\/p>\n

Condemned by several media freedom campaigners, including Turkey\u2019s Press Council,\u00a0 The Turkish Journalists Association and the Progressive Journalist Association ,the latest restrictions on the \u00a0media coincided with a new and comprehensive \u00a0report<\/a> by\u00a0 the Washington-based watch-dog \u00a0Freedom House, describing Turkey as a battleground state for Internet regulation .<\/p>\n

Pro-government media\u2019s glorification of the great leader and his servile successor may give an impression of a country eager to be restored and transformed but it takes more than hollow declarations by its politicians to convince the world that Turkey is on a smooth path ahead.<\/p>\n

The country will come under ever tightening scrutiny for its past and present policies in its increasingly dangerous neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The next prime minister of Turkey may get away with not mentioning the 49 hostages held by ISIS in Iraq for the past 77 days but he is culpable for their fate as well as much of what has unfolded inside and outside Turkey\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

While espousing a restoration of moral superiority, Mr Davutoglu may soon find himself having to answer some awkward questions about his country\u2019s somewhat amoral accommodation of the Islamist radicals including ISIS until very recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amidst scenes eerily reminiscent of the former Soviet Republics, Turkey\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) elected the outgoing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as its new leader. In a sports arena in the capital, Turkey\u2019s President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan spoke for nearly two hours, outlining his vision of the \u201cNew Turkey\u201d. Surrounded by huge posters […]<\/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\/842"}],"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=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}