Turkey: Erdogan's Stalinist Purge

by Giulio Meotti • October 30, 2017 at 5:00 am

Perhaps even more objectionable is Turkey's persecution of novelists who do not even take part in the political debate. They are hated by Erdogan's Islamist government simply for conveying Western ideas and fighting for freedom of speech.
Turkey's Erdogan is following the Soviet Stalinist method of burying the books, often along with their authors. Turkey is purging culture.
After the failed coup last year, Erdogan fired "21,000 teachers" and "1,577 university deans". It is the beheading of Turkey's academic culture. Shamefully, Europe has kept silent about this ideological massacre.

In August, at the Turkish government's request through Interpol, Spanish police arrested a famous Turkish writer, Dogan Akhanli (pictured), who was on vacation in Spain. (Image source: © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

End of August, Madrid: At the Turkish government's request through Interpol, Spanish police arrested a famous Turkish writer, Dogan Akhanli, who was on vacation in Spain. A few days earlier, in Barcelona, Spanish authorities had arrested the Turkish writer, Hamza Yalcin, a reporter for the left-wing newspaper Odak. Meanwhile, in Turkey, another writer, Ahmet Altan was on trial. Turkish authorities prevented yet another Turkish novelist, Asli Erdogan, from flying to Europe to receive the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize in the German city of Osnabrück.

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Turkey and the U.S.: A Poisoned Alliance

by Burak Bekdil • October 30, 2017 at 4:00 am

Ever since the Iraqi Kurds held a referendum (and voted "yes") on independence on September 25, Turkey has aligned itself with Iran and the Iran-controlled government in Iraq, who view the Kurdish political movement as a major threat.
Take the most significant geostrategic regional calculation in northern Syria: What Ankara views as the biggest security threat are U.S. allies fighting the Islamic State: the Syrian Kurds.
The anti-American sentiment in Turkey (part of which has been fueled by the Islamist government in power since 2002) may push Turkey further into a Russian-led axis of regional powers, including Iran.

Ever since the Iraqi Kurds held a referendum on independence, on September 25, Turkey has aligned itself with Iran and the Iran-controlled government in Iraq, who view the Kurdish political movement as a major threat. Pictured: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) meets with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, on September 24, 2014. (Image source: Iranian President's Office)

In theory, Turkey and the United States have been staunch allies since the predominately Muslim nation became a NATO member state in 1952. Also, in theory, the leaders of the two allies are on friendly terms. President Donald Trump gave "very high marks" to Turkey's increasingly autocratic, Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Turkish leader's recent visit to Washington when his security detail attacked peaceful protesters.

It is puzzling why Trump gave a passionately (and ideologically) pro-Hamas, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist leader "very high marks." But in reality, the Ankara-Washington axis could not be farther from diplomatic niceties such as "allies" or "very high marks."

This is a select (and brief) recent anatomy of what some analysts call "hostage diplomacy" between the two "staunch NATO allies."

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