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May 01, 2007
Is Anybody Paying Attention
...to Turkey? Maybe they should be.
Turkey's financial markets remained nervous on Tuesday ahead of a decision by the country's highest court that will determine the future of a controversial presidential appointment.Stocks and the lira were slightly weaker, although there was no repeat of the sharp sell-off seen on Monday. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, and Ali Babacan, the chief minister responsible for the economy, both appealed for calm.
Mr Babacan, in an interview on Turkish television on Tuesday, acknowledged that political risk factors had risen for investors in the Turkish markets after a clash at the weekend between the military and the government over the credentials of Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, as Turkey's next president.
Several newspapers reported on Tuesday that the constitutional court had been advised by its appointed legal expert to reject an opposition claim that a first round of voting in parliament on Mr Gul was invalid. If the court rejects the claim, it would put the matter back in the political arena.
The constitutional court is expected to rule on the matter later on Tuesday or on Wednesday.
Mr Erdogan said in a televised address to the nation on Monday night that any threat to Turkey's economic and political stability must be rejected.
"Unity, togetherness, solidarity – these are the things we need," Mr Erdogan said.
His address was recorded on Saturday, hours after the military issued what is seen as an ultimatum to the Islamist-rooted government to drop Abdullah Gul, foreign minister, as its presidential candidate.
Posted by tree hugging sister at May 1, 2007 07:55 AM
Comments
Hmmm.
Yeah Turkey will never be allowed to join the EU. The political instability coupled with the potential for a massive influx of hardline Islamic fundamentalists ended that.
Not that joining the EU looks to be a good thing in the long term.
Posted by: memomachine at May 1, 2007 10:53 AM
Turkey and Pakistan share a common structure - a secular military that keeps the Islamists at bay by periodic interventions in internal politics.
I think that this system is more suited to the Middle East than the Rube Goldberg constitution we foisted off on the Iraqis. This system has worked in Turkey for 94 years - althgough in its infancy it turned Islamist wrath on the Armenians, so it certainly isn't perfect. But over the long haul it's been more stable, and therefore benefitted more Turks materially, than any other ME government - especially that hodge-podge of crap foisted off on artifical countries created in the ME by Britain from 1919 - 1922.
But I agree that this structure should be an intermediate and temporary (for sufficiently long definitions of "temporary") and not suited for a state seeking to join the EU. Turkey needs another generation or 2, Pakistan another 3 or 4, before real democracy can be risked.
Posted by: John at May 1, 2007 12:57 PM
Hmmmm.
The only problem with that, and with Islam in general, is that every generation has it's share of fundamentalists and terrorists. There is literally IMHO no certain way to ensure that any polity involving a large number of muslims could possibly remain free of fundamentalists and terrorists.
Which is why Kemal put the military in Turkey in charge of unseating a fundamentalist government when necessary.
And I really don't think such a structure would work in Iraq because the military isn't sufficiently independent enough of ministerial politics and ethnic religious politics.
*shrug* I guess the best way for Iraq is to be divided into three separate realms, but that's got issues too with regards to the Kurds/PKK and Turkey along with Iran and the Shia'a dominated southern Iraq.
Posted by: memomachine at May 2, 2007 10:24 AM