The trouble with Erdoğan
For many people in the West, Turkish President’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s support for Palestine has bought him a lot of good will. Sadly, this comes from ignorance and is certainly not merited.
When former First Minister Humza Yousaf issued an effusive invitation to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in December 2023, he was criticised from many quarters. It was made clear that you cannot make a stand against the genocide of the Palestinians by supporting the perpetrator of genocide against the Kurds, nor criticise the terror perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu by whitewashing the terror perpetrated by his Turkish counterpart.
It seems that Yousaf has chosen to ignore the advice and views of concerned Scottish society, and has doubled down on his support for Erdoğan. By posing next to Erdoğan’s wife in Istanbul, and portraying Turkey as a force for peace, he is helping to giving Erdoğan the international acceptance that protects him from accountability. Ironically, just a day before retweeting Emine Erdoğan, Yousaf had written a tweet accusing those who criticised Russia and didn’t criticise Israel of hypocrisy.
To welcome Erdoğan once may be regarded as a product of ignorance; to do so again looks like callousness.
Yousaf’s love for the Erdoğans is based on the president’s image as a defender of the Palestinians, as well as the protection Turkey provided his parents-in-law when they escaped from Gaza. That pro-Palestine image is a political concoction, and it’s hollowness has been well exposed. Turkey has always maintained strong economic ties with Israel, and at times military ties too.
Despite the ongoing genocide, some 40 per cent of Israel’s oil needs have continued to be met via the Turkish port of Ceyhan, and Turkey’s much-vaunted ban on exports to Israel has been evaded by exporting through third countries, and especially via the Palestinian Authority. When people attempted to protest against this at Turkish ports, they were met with police violence.
For Erdoğan, support for Palestine is part of his personal branding. Palestine demonstrations in Turkey are not the usually green, red, and white, but a sea of red Turkish flags. A recent pro-Palestine demonstration called by the opposition rather than by the ruling party was met with an official ban.
While Erdoğan highlights the abuses carried out by Israel against the Palestinians, Netanyahu highlights Turkey’s abuses against the Kurds. In both cases, the abuses are only too real, despite the hypocrisy of the accuser.
Kurds have been the butt of an abrasive ethnic nationalism since the foundation of the Turkish Republic a hundred years ago. The denial of all Kurdish rights, and of a political route to address this, led to the foundation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose guerrillas have carried out military struggle for the last four decades.
Erdoğan’s own approach to the Kurds can be explained by his ruthless pursuit of political power. He negotiated with the PKK when he thought that would boost his political support, but when, instead, peace talks benefitted the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), depriving him of his absolute majority, he turned the tables. Since 2015, he has adopted an aggressive Islamic nationalism in which the Kurds have served as a scapegoated other and populist enemy. Restrictions on Kurdish cultural expression have been combined with the suppression of Kurdish politics and regional autonomy.
In Turkey itself this has meant the imprisonment of thousands of politically active people, including the former co-chairs of the HDP, and elected HDP mayors – who have been replaced by government appointed trustees.
“Turkey is at a dangerous crossroads, and Yousaf is aligning himself with Turkey’s would-be dictator”
In recent months, hopes have been raised of a new peace process. Members of the DEM Party (the HDP’s successor) have finally been allowed to meet with Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK and author of the philosophy that underlies the wider Kurdish Freedom Movement, whose leadership is acknowledged by millions. Öcalan, has called on the PKK to lay down arms and dissolve itself, and the PKK leadership has responded positively and declared a ceasefire; but for the process to go further, the government needs to show their commitment.
Specifically, they need to allow the PKK to hold a congress, and they need to commit to ensuring a mechanism for former guerrillas to take up a political rather than military path. Vitally, Öcalan has to be free to conduct crucial negotiations. There is huge support for a new peace process across the political spectrum, but Erdoğan seems reluctant to fully engage, and there have been no concrete actions from the government side. There are fears that Erdoğan will refuse to grasp this historic opportunity.
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Erdoğan has used the presence of PKK bases as an excuse to extend Turkey’s military control, destroying and emptying Kurdish villages in the process. When they have been unable to reach the PKK guerrillas with conventional means, there is strong evidence that they have resorted to chemical weapons. Turkey’s attacks have never complied with international laws of self-defence or proportionality. With the PKK ceasefire and proposal to dissolve, the self-defence argument loses all pretence of credibility, but Turkey’s attacks have not stopped. They cannot seriously expect the PKK to disarm while they are attacking them.
In Syria, Turkey has focused on increasing its own power and control, and on attempting to prevent the growth and survival of Kurdish regional autonomy. In the midst of Syria’s brutal civil war, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria provided a haven of peaceful co-existence, while its grassroots democracy and women’s revolution - based on Öcalan’s philosophy - have inspired people around the globe. Erdoğan’s Turkey want’s to destroy it.
To try and achieve this, Turkey has aided ISIS - including enabling the recruitment of thousands of foreign fighters. They have carried out unprovoked invasions and occupied large parts of the north of the country. They have supported mercenary militias that have become known for their sadistic violence. They have carried out targeted assassinations and shelled civilian areas. And they have held back vital river water, and destroyed essential infrastructure.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that has now seized power in Damascus, grew up under Turkish protection and is still influenced by Turkey. Turkey is trying to prevent the interim government from working with and responding to the demands of the Kurds and the Autonomous Administration, and is pushing them to insist on centralised control. Erdoğan wants to see an end to the hard-won freedoms achieved in North and East Syria.
Israel’s reshaping of the Middle East has shaken old power balances, and Turkey and Israel are now competing for control in Syria. They have been avoiding direct conflict with each other, but neither shows much concern for the people who live there. Both are major forces for destabilisation in this highly volatile region.
Since Yousaf’s first overture to Erdoğan, the Turkish president has hardened his commitment to authoritarian rule. The main challenger to Erdoğan’s presidency, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was mayor of Istanbul, is now a political prisoner, and millions of people have been on the streets to try and defend what is left of Turkish democracy. The country is at a dangerous crossroads, and Yousaf is aligning himself with Turkey’s would-be dictator.
Every act of blatant hypocrisy by our elected politicians is another nail in the coffin of liberal democracy. Disillusionment with the political class has opened the door to right-wing populism, but it also proves the need for the development of an alternative engaged grassroots politics – the sort of politics that the Kurdish Freedom Movement is attempting to create, and that Erdoğan is determined to destroy.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter or bluesky