Turkey has recently announced, through the voice of president Erdoğan, that it would not support the NATO accession of Sweden and Finland, accusing the two states of harboring Kurdish terrorists. Many political pundits believe the real reason has to do with Ankara’s desperate attempt to negotiate a return to the Western camp, which Turkey has distanced itself from in recent years, due to the serious economic issues this country is facing. This time around, I don’t share this view and believe the president’s recent outburst actually reflects his own conviction. In fact, it has to do with one of the oldest shams underlying Turkish nationalism in the Republic’s near hundred years of existence. The “Kurdish question”, along with the “Armenian question” or the “Cypriote question” are presented by official ideology as existential problems in a century-old effort for the sake of securitizing the state and the nation against its own citizens and the West. And everyone has been increasingly critical of Turkey’s shams, thus foreshadowing a possible conflict between Turkey, or least the current regime, and the country’s traditional partners in Europe and North America.
An anti-Western regime and a pro-European population
A survey commissioned by the German Marshal Fund-Turkey in March, 2022 reveals that over 76% of young Turks aged 18-24 have a positive perception of Europeans. The percentage dropped slightly to 60% after factoring in responses from participants over the age of 24. Similarly, 61% of interviewees said they would vote for Turkey’s European Union accession. The percentage rose to 75% in the case of young people aged 18-24. Meanwhile, the number of young people saying they are ready to leave Turkey in order to emigrate to Western countries, especially in Europe, has gone up significantly, standing at some 70%. The reasons mentioned by respondents have to do particularly with the regime’s shift to authoritarianism and the unprecedented degree of erosion of the independence of the country’s judiciary. This phenomenon has been confirmed by inquiries with a high level of credibility carried out by KONDA, Metropoll or the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, as well as by the increase in the number of Turkish citizens migrating to Western countries.
Such surveys and trends also reflect a growing tension at the level of Turkish society with respect to the country’s relations with the EU and its values. Whereas the population seems to show more support for Turkey’s European integration and its adhesion to the system of liberal and democratic values binding the EU, the regime in Ankara seems to do everything in its power to undermine this process. Ever since November 2014, president Erdoğan spoke in public about “foreigners”, describing them as enemies who want to see Muslims dead, who want their children to die, calling on all Muslim states to unite and stand up to these enemies. After the failed coup of July 2016, the idea that the West is seeking to overthrow the regime has been ingrained deep in the political DNA of Turkish society. The Turkish president did not hesitate to use strong terms in his public addresses, especially when referring to leaders of European countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria.
At the same time, Turkey is firmly straying further away from the EU’s most basic standards (the Copenhagen criteria) that candidate countries must comply with in terms of the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, or individual and collective rights and democratic liberties (including the rights of minorities). The consequences of this evolution on bilateral relations speak for themselves. In over three years, there’s been a single meeting of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, held on March 17, 2022. On the sidelines of that meeting, the European Parliament representative did not hesitate to mention the “growing distance between the European Union and Turkey in recent years”.
The European Council used the same tone in the conclusions of the summit held on June 26, 2018. On that occasion, EU heads of state and government took drastic measures. Therefore, the European Commission, the main actor overseeing the EU’s enlargement process, will no longer be authorized to open or close any of the 35 accession negotiation chapters. The process is de facto frozen, although Turkey remains a de jure candidate country. The EU has also substantially curbed its Instrumental for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) to this country, suspending bilateral cooperation aimed at streamlining the Trade Union. And yet, the regime in Ankara seems little to not at all bothered by all these things. It maintains a position of aggression towards any and all manifestations of opposition at home and is fixated on repeatedly infringing on human rights amidst the ever-deeper erosion of the rule of law. The cases of Osman Kavala or Selahattin Demirtaş, among many others, are strong evidence in this respect.
The Turkish justice system – a tool used to consolidate the regime’s grip on power and silence the opposition
Faced with considerable amount of pressure ever since 2010, Turkey’s justice system lost its institutional independence from the executive power at informal level after the failed coup of July 2016, and then formally after the introduction of the presidential administrative system following the April 2017 referendum. The subordination of the judiciary is part of a broader undertaking designed to consolidate the authority of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and of AKP. The process was accelerated by the developments in Egypt and Syria, against the backdrop of the “Arab Spring”, by the Gezi Park protests of May-July 2013, and the top-level graft scandal of December 2013. It appears that all these events have helped cultivate the perception of a Western threat to the current leader in Ankara, prompting the shift towards authoritarianism. The Gezi protests in particular are worth being recalled as a landmark in collective memory for being the first and last mass anti-establishment action staged by civil society in Turkey that had to do with specific issues of civil society, without any explicit connection to societal or political issues.
Osman Kavala, a businessman, philanthropist and human rights activist, a highly popular figure who kept away from politics, was one of the ringleaders of the civilian grassroots movement in the years prior to the Gezi protests. He sparked the anger and enmity of the Turkish leadership, which got him arrested on Atatürk airport in Istanbul on October 18, 2017. He has since been imprisoned. It was back then that he started being demonized by state-controlled media, which monopolizes the national media sector, as well as in numerous speeches of state officials. He is described as a “Turkey’s Soros”, a “sponsor of terrorists”, “traitor to his nation” or “collaborator of FETÖ” (a Turkish acronym standing for the “Fetullah Gülen Terrorist Organization”, a term which the government uses to refer to a far-reaching terrorist cell led by the Muslim preacher Fetullah Gülen, which it accuses of having orchestrated the July 2016 coup).
Turkish prosecutors accused Kavala, as well as a number of other people, of having committed numerous actions that went against the government and the Turkish state. The evidence presented to back the allegations is however highly controversial: uncredited or misinterpreted media statements, “absurd scenarios” or depositions made by unknown individuals. In its challenges and appeals, the defense has invoked a number of serious errors that run afoul of the rules of procedure. Although he got acquitted on February 18, 2020 in the Gezi protest court trial, Kavala returned to prison the next day. A few hours following his acquittal, the chief prosecutor in Istanbul opened a new investigation in his name. A year later, despite being acquitted again, Kavala remained in detention after being indicted yet again. All that despite a final ruling issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in December 2019, which took note of Turkey’s violation of the defendant’s rights, calling for his immediate release.
Every arrest and indictment of Kavala was preceded by very harsh public declarations made by president Erdoğan and other Turkish leaders, especially from the ultranationalist camp. The courts of law ruled Osman Kavala must remain in prison, although Turkey is compelled to abide by the ECHR’s decision, as a member of the Council of Europe, under the auspices of which the ECHR operates. Due to its failure to comply with the rulings of this international court of law, Turkey now risks being excluded from the Council of Europe and isolated from global politics.
Ankara’s handling of the whole case was also very close to triggering the most serious diplomatic crisis in the history of the Republic. In October, 2021, ten Western diplomats signed a joint declaration expressing their opposition to Kavala’s continuous imprisonment and to Turkey’s unwillingness to abide by the ECHR’s ruling. Ankara threatened it would expel the diplomats in question, which would have started a major international incident. It was averted at the last moment, when president Erdoğan decided not to expel the diplomats after their embassies issued a joint statement, whereby they expressed their readiness to observe diplomatic conventions of non-interference in the domestic affairs of their host country.
Despite incontrovertible evidence, Osman Kavala was eventually sentenced to life in prison without parole on April 25, 2022, for “trying to overthrow the government”. His appeal was denied a few days later by an Istanbul-based court.
Considering the notoriety this case incited and the regime’s overt hostility towards Osman Kavala, it is likely the matter will again be referred to the ECHR. Most likely, Ankara will toe the president’s line, as Erdoğan repeatedly has been more or less implicit about his disregard of the international court’s rulings. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to image how Turkey might avoid getting suspended in the Council of Europe at the end of the ongoing inquiry. Such an outcome would deal a heavy blow to Turkey, confirming its position as a player challenging global order based on the observance of international treatises and legislation.
A country that grows increasingly less European
We must consider the fact that good cooperation with the Council of Europe and all the affiliated institutions, with the observance of all treatises governing its activity, is a fundamental prerequisite to the positive evolution of EU accession, especially in terms of fulfilling political criteria. There is no observance of human rights or minority rights without abiding by European best practices, in line with the relevant provisions stipulated in international treatises underlying the United Nations and the Council of Europe in particular. Every candidate country after 1993 followed the same procedure, as will every current and prospective candidate, including Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and others.
The case of Selahattin Demirtaș equally confirms that Turkey has chosen to head in the opposite direction, steered by the current regime. A former MP and co-leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP Party, a former candidate who came in third in the 2014 presidential election, Demirtaș shared the same fate as Osman Kavala. His first “mistake” was to condemn the Ankara regime in public for its lack of reaction in September 2014, when the Islamic State militias at the time attacked the city of Kobane in northern Syria, which is home to a majority Kurdish population. He went on to successfully lead HDP through the 2015 parliamentary election, when it became the first pro-Kurdish party to enter Parliament. The ruling coalition thus lost considerable ground. Demirtaș launched a vehement protest against the government as well as PKK, when the two entities appeared to subvert peace negotiations and resorted to violence, particularly in the second half of 2015. Unrelenting, he strenuously campaigned against the presidential form of government which the regime wanted to introduce under the controversial April 2017 referendum.
Meanwhile, Demirtaș was arrested in October 2016, but got sentenced as late as September 2018 for a public speech marking Newroz in March 2013 (!). In spite of two ECHR rulings condemning his detention, one in 2018, the other in 2020, Demirtaș remains in prison to date, awaiting other pending trials and being barred from politics. HDP in turn faces impending dissolution, being involved in a court case where it stands accused of collaborating with PKK.
According to statistics published by expert international organizations, approximately 50 thousand people are presently considered to have been imprisoned on political grounds in Turkey. Of these, some 12 thousand are Kurds and/or are connected to Kurdish separatism. The repeated petitions of the said organizations, as well as pleas voiced by Brussels, Washington and other Western chancelleries with a view to ceasing these practices remain unanswered. Every time, Ankara responds by denying the accusations and condemning the reports in question in very strong terms.
Ankara’s approach to Kavala, Demirtaș and others like them therefore suggests a deterioration of the judiciary of unprecedented scope in the history of the Turkish Republic. In conjunction with the contentious statements of Turkish officials concerning other European institutions and countries or their leaders, this approach gives the full picture of a regime that has no intention of returning to reforms. On the contrary, by means of the laws that it already adopted or is currently working on, including a revised Constitution, the regime appears to be preparing to celebrate the Republic’s centennial in 2023 as a reinforced bastion of anti-democratic and anti-Western authoritarianism. And all this time, police brutalities, mass arrests and prison sentences continue unhindered.
According to a report published by the main opposition party, CHP, 288 people were arrested during the 45 protest actions in April alone. A lot of civic or cultural events were banned by prefect’s offices. The frequency of these incidents is much higher in southeastern Turkey, where the state of emergency is maintained in some regions, compared to the rest of the country. More recently, the Court of Cassation handed out a prison sentence of 4 years and 11 months to Canan Kaftancıoğlu, a marking member of CHP whose contribution as campaign manager weighed heavily in the victory of opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoğlu, in the two-round election of 2019 against AKP’s candidate in the race for the Istanbul City Hall. The Court motivated its ruling, arguing that Mrs. Kaftancıoğlu allegedly offended the country’s president and other state officials in a number of social media posts, some older than ten years. It is therefore important to mention that, once Erdoğan secured his first term as president in 2014, the number of people brought to court for insulting the president went up by over 40%, whereas tribunals handed sentences of over 27 thousand years in prison over the 2015-2019 period.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has dispatched two special rapporteurs to examine the situation of Kavala and the overall human rights framework in Turkey. Over May 18-20, the two officials are also expected to meet with Turkish officials before submitting their findings to PACE on May 24 regarding the ongoing investigation into the violation of ECHR rulings and procedures. It is this very investigation that might get Turkey’s voting rights in the Council of Europe suspended, with serious consequences on this country’s standing at international level.
On May 12, 2022, the European Parliament published a press release, warning against “continued deterioration of the human rights situation in Turkey” and “the sustained legal and administrative pressure that the Turkish government is putting on civil society and human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists.” Additionally, the document explicitly states that, “by openly defying the binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the case of Osman Kavala and others, the current Turkish Government has deliberately demolished any aspirations of reopening the EU accession process at this time.” The report is also important because it reflects the determination and commitment of MEPs, representatives of EU citizens, to contribute to the decision-making process with respect to EU enlargement, alongside the Council of Ministers. This piece of EU policy is funded with EU taxpayer money, and Parliament sent out a strong signal it is willing to use every legal instrument at its disposal to make sure the funds will go only to those regimes that abide by European values.
Turkey’s opposition to the NATO accession of Finland and Sweden and Ankara’s authoritarian nationalism
Considering the examples recalled in this article, which are but a few of many others, it’s hard to imagine Ankara will accept a return to this system of values. Turkish leaders remain loyal to authoritarian nationalism, which has dominated most of the near hundred-year history of the Republic, subordinating and reducing the rule of law and human rights to empty words. It is in this key that we should also interpret the regime’s approach to Kavala and civil society, or to Demirtaș and the Kurdish movement.
President Erdoğan’s recent aggressive and undiplomatic outburst, voicing his opposition to the NATO accession of Sweden and Finland, follows the same logic. It is grounded on Ankara’s traditional definition of “Kurdish terrorism”, a vague notion that leaves plenty of room for interpretation to Turkish courts of law while enforcing the regime’s directives. The mere stage performance of a Kurdish-language song can be interpreted as evidence of collaborating with PKK, as it happened on numerous occasions and will likely continue to happen. When a European country such as Sweden or Finland repudiates such sophisms, they are treated with hostility by the Turkish government, which in fact seeks to impose its own agenda in a foreign country. Similar situations often arise in connection with the “Cypriote question” or the “Armenian question”.
All that must therefore be looked upon as rather a perpetual “Turkish question”: a country that has never agreed to resolve its long-standing differences by means of dialogue and cooperation with the other partners, preferring to resort to such strategies as brushing its troubles under the mat. Since the current regime in Ankara has not once in the last two decades shown any sign of considering a radical change of strategy, it is therefore expected that Turkey should further distance itself from European values over the coming period. And it’s becoming more and more clear, as the aforementioned surveys have also confirmed, that this will happen at the increasing expense of its own citizens. The fundamental issue of present-day Turkey has to do with national minorities in general and Kurds and Alevi in particular. The two groups account for 20% to 25% of Turkey’s entire population: a few dozen million people that are excluded from what the state has officially dubbed the Turkish nation. And their vast majority, many of whom are young people, support a secular Turkey aligned to European values and integrated into the EU. It is therefore possible that tensions should escalate to boiling point, something which some veterans of Turkish politics have predicted.
