Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank, was found guilty in January by a New York jury of conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.
It seems that many international pundits made two key miscalculations about U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the November 2002 election against a background of recurrent economic crises (in 1994, 1999, 2000 and 2001). Turkey’s economic situation deteriorated in the 1990s due to populist policies that prevented structural reforms.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey since the July 2016 coup attempt on suspicion of having links to Fetullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). The first verdicts in these cases started to be delivered last year.
Readers of this column will know that I have written several critical articles on Turkey’s allies and partners. Due to strains in Turkey’s relations with the United States and European countries, this criticism has often targeted Turkey’s Western allies. I have also voiced it whenever I have met representatives of Turkey’s partners in the transatlantic alliance.
“Only a few weeks before the crisis, I was able to gather only around 100 people for a meeting with a visiting minister. After the crisis, that was no longer the case,” a Turkish businessman living in Germany once told me. He is a prominent figure with strong links to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). He explained how he tried to convince German officials on the consequences of banning Turkish politicians from speaking in Germany. “You will lose the trust of at least one generation of Turks living in your country,” he apparently told them.
The alliance of the ruling Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) recently made controversial changes to the electoral law. Opposition parties are concerned that the changes could further taint fair and free elections. These concerns stem from domestic worries, and foreign interference in elections does not appear to be a concern - at least at the public level.
Earlier this month German Ambassador to Turkey Martin Erdmann met a group of journalists in Istanbul.
A few days before the Turkish Armed Forces entered Afrin’s city center, video footage was all over the Turkish press showing how the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) was stopping civilians trying to leave the city.
