Erdogan the Bully

Although there is no mention of the Armenian-Turkish negotiations, that could also be impacted because they were initiated upon the demand of President Joe Biden. When we see the toughening of Turkey’s bargaining position, we will know where Ankara is coming from.

When asked on May 18 how he would convince President Erdogan to drop his objection against Finland and Sweden joining NATO, President Biden answered, “I’m not going to Turkey, but I think we’re going to be OK.”

But it looks like everything will not be okay, because among other thing, Erdogan savors public attention and wants to be treated by all US officials like he was treated in the Trump era. Erdogan has even complained to reporters that he and President Biden don’t have the kind of relationship he had with Presidents Trump and Obama. “Of course, there are some meetings from time to time, but they should have been more advanced,” he said.

Erdogan would like to get away with murder, in view of the West’s economic sanctions against Russia. Indeed, Turkey’s business community is hard at work at this time negotiating trade deals with their Russian counterparts to replace Western companies, which have severed their relations with Russia.

Erdogan’s macho stand against the West will garner the most dividends on the domestic front. He needed this confrontation to boost his sagging popularity at home in time for the 2023 elections, where his prospects of winning are dimming in light of the runaway inflation.

Mr. Erdogan fails to see the negative, bullying image that he is projecting to the West. Even if he is cognizant of that less-than-complimentary image, he seems not to care.

In an opinion piece written by Joseph Lieberman, the former US Senator from Connecticut, he argues that Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey would flunk the alliance’s standards for democratic governance sought in prospective new member states. The essay, which was published in the Wall Street Journal, warned that Ankara’s policies, including coziness with Putin, had undermined NATO’s interests and the alliance should explore ways of ejecting Turkey.

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in 2019, after Turkey’s incursion into Syria, “Turkey under Erdogan should not and cannot be seen as an ally.”

Despite those characterizations, Ankara has been selling a bill of goods to the Europeans, extending its repressive rule to that continent.

During Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has carried out political activities in Germany and the Netherlands, trying to politicize and mobilize Turkish minorities living in those two countries, over the objections of the respective governments of those countries. It had extended the bloody hands of the deep state and the dreaded secret service, MIT, to commit high-profile political assassinations of female Kurdish leaders in Paris in 2013.

Despite such criminal conduct being launched by Turkey in Europe, Mr. Erdogan has issued this admonishment: “Let me underscore it once again hereby. Those who back and provide every kind of support to terrorist organizations that pose a threat to Turkey should first of all abandon their unlawful, insincere and arrogant attitude towards us. May no one have any doubts whatsoever that we as Turkey will do our part once we see concrete practices indicating such a change.”

Turkey itself is a terrorist state and because of political expediency, has convinced European Union countries to place the PKK on their list of terrorists. Twenty-five percent of Turkey’s population consists of Kurds who have been denied their basic human rights; they have been systematically slaughtered by successive Turkish administrations. Article 64 of the Sevres Treaty (August 10, 1920) promised a homeland to the Kurds within the current territory of Turkey; that pledge has not been fulfilled yet. The Kurds have been subjected to mass murder from the Ataturk era to Erdogan’s administration. The most atrocious mass murders took place in the 1930s in Dersim.

Erdogan himself duped the Kurdish minority by feigning to hold negotiations to observe their human rights and as soon as he was elected with the support of Kurdish voters, he suspended the negotiations and resorted back to the persecution of the Kurdish minority. He even stripped the parliamentary immunity of members including Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag and jailed them. And today, with a straight face, he is accusing Europeans of harboring Kurdish terrorists.

With heavy-handed tactics, Erdogan has intimidated political leaders both in Europe and Russia and has been able to push his expansionist policies.

While Erdogan is playing hardball with the major powers, hopefully he won’t focus on Armenia, which is not in the same league as the latter.