Cracking Down on Creative Voices: ’s Silencing of Writers, Intellectuals, and Artists Five Years After the Failed Coup

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Cracking Down on Creative Voices: Turkey’s Silencing of Writers, Intellectuals, and Artists Five Years After the Failed Coup

Since the attempted coup d’état in 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has elevated his attacks on Turkey’s civil society to unprecedented levels, becoming one of the world’s foremost persecutors of freedom of expression. In the five years since the attempted coup, dozens of writers, activists, artists, and intellectuals have been targeted, prosecuted, and jailed; 29 publishing houses have been closed; over 135,000 books have been banned from Turkish public libraries; and more than 5,800 academics have been dismissed from their posts for expressing dissent. PEN America’s 2020 Freedom to Write Index found that Turkey was the world’s third highest imprisoner of writers and public intellectuals, with at least 25 cases of detention or imprisonment. This repressive climate has left writers and other members of Turkey’s cultural sector feeling embattled and targeted, unsure of what they can say or write without falling into their government’s crosshairs.

PEN America, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), and members of Turkey’s cultural, artistic, and literary communities discussed these trends and made recommendations on how policymakers might respond to Erdoğan’s campaign of repression. The discussion highlighted PEN America’s report on freedom of expression in Turkey, which features interviews from members of Turkey’s literary, cultural, and human rights communities to better understand how this society- wide crackdown has affected freedom of expression within the country.

Introductory Remarks:

Panel Discussion:

Karin Karlekar is PEN America’s Writers at Risk director. She has two decades of experience in global free expression, press freedom, and digital rights issues, as well as advocacy and assistance work on behalf of writers, bloggers, and journalists. Dr. Karlekar has developed index methodologies and conducted training sessions on press freedom, internet freedom, freedom of expression, and monitoring dangerous speech; authored a number of special reports and academic papers; and conducted advocacy missions across the globe.

Asena Günal is a cofounder of Siyah Bant, a research platform that documents censorship cases in the arts in Turkey, and executive director of Anadolu Kültür, a nonprofit that promotes art and culture production across Turkey. Günal currently is also the program coordinator of Depo, a center for arts and culture in the Tophane neighborhood of Istanbul, and was previously an editor at İletişim Publishing House from 1998 to 2005. Günal is a winner of the 2019 Franco- German Human Rights and the Rule of Law Prize.

Burhan Sönmez is the author of five novels that have been translated into 42 languages. He was born in Turkey and grew up speaking Turkish and Kurdish. He worked as a lawyer in Istanbul before going to Britain as a political exile. His writing has appeared in papers including The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and la Repubblica. He received the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation’s “Disturbing the Peace” Award in 2017 and the EBRD Literature Prize in 2018. A Board member of PEN International, he divides his time between Istanbul (Turkey) and Cambridge (UK).

Caroline Stockford is a translator of Turkish poetry and literature and PEN Norway’s Turkey adviser. She has translated the poetry of classic and contemporary Turkish poets at the Cunda International Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature for the past three years and is currently translating two Turkish novels and co-translating the poetry of Küçük İskender into Welsh.

Erol Önderoğlu is a Turkish-French journalist and representative of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, RSF). In 2016, he was arrested by the Turkish government under the accusation of assisting terrorists for his work supporting Ozgur Gundem, a Kurdish newspaper. In 2018, Önderoğlu received the Roosevelt Foundation’s Four Freedoms Award regarding freedom of speech, which cited his “tireless and persistent dedication to defend the freedom of speech and expression.”

Merve Tahiroğlu (moderator) is the Turkey program coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), a Washington-based research and advocacy NGO focused on human rights and democracy in the Middle East. Prior to joining POMED, Tahiroğlu was a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where she focused on Turkey’s domestic politics, foreign policy, and relationship with Washington. Tahiroğlu has authored several monographs on Turkey and published articles in various outlets such as Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, POLITICO, NBC, and HuffPost.

Photo Credit: Hilmi Hacaloğlu / Wikimedia Commons Senate Human Rights Caucus Discussion: “The Human Rights Situation in Turkey”

The Senate Human Rights Caucus held a discussion June 15, 2021, on the state of moderated by Nadine Maenza, Commissioner of Commission on International Religious Freedom, and featuring remarks by Senator Chris Coons and Senator Thom Tillis.

Turkey is a strategically located NATO member state and regional power with an ethnically diverse population. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has controlled the government in Turkey since 2002. Over time, President Erdoğan has increasingly exercised political power to silence dissent, detain opponents, and limit civil liberties. Following the July 15, 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, these activities escalated significantly. The ensuing crackdown resulted in the dismissal of nearly 60,000 law enforcement and military personnel, 125,000 civil servants, one-third of the judiciary, and the detention of over 90,000 citizens from 2016 to 2020, according to the State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices. Freedom House’s 2021 Freedom in the World Report highlighted these illiberal trends by reporting that Turkey experienced the second largest decline in freedom of any country from 2011 to 2021.

Panelists discussed the status of human rights in Turkey and how Turkish leadership can engage in reforms to protect and promote the fundamental rights and freedoms of Turkish citizens. Panelists:

Ms. Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey Program Coordinator, Project on Middle East Democracy Mr. Diliman Abdulkader, Co-Founder and Spokesperson, American Friends of Kurdistan Mr. Aykan Erdemir, Turkey Program Senior Director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Dr. Suleyman Ozeren, adjunct faculty at George Mason University

Remarks from POMED’s Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu are as follows (read them as a PDF here):

Thank you, co-chairman Coons and co-chairman Tillis, for holding this panel and for inviting me to speak.

Turkey’s human rights crisis is today at a level unprecedented in the 19 years that President Erdoğan has ruled the country. I would like to focus my remarks on what this means for Turkey’s trajectory and why the United States must prioritize democratic values in its policy towards Turkey.

Erdoğan’s blatant disregard for basic human rights is an alarming threat to Turkey’s social and political stability. Under his rule, the Turkish government is leveling an abhorrent crackdown on Turkey’s political opposition, independent media, and civil society—dismantling the fundamental building blocks of a stable democracy. Turkey’s top opposition leaders, who together represent more than half of the electorate, face constant harassment from a politicized judiciary. Erdoğan’s near- total control of the media and periodic bans on protests leave disgruntled citizens with very few outlets to express their frustration democratically. In a country as polarized along ethnic, religious, and political lines as Turkey, this is a recipe for social upheaval and civil strife.

The most urgent issue that could trigger such unrest is the government’s effort to shut down the HDP, Turkey’s second largest opposition party. For years now, authorities have been jailing the party’s duly elected lawmakers and mayors without just cause or due process—in effect, disenfranchising millions of voters. Critically, a majority of the HDP’s voters are Kurds, Turkey’s largest ethnic minority. And for the last 40 years, Turkey has been engaged in a deadly war with Kurdish militants—a war that bitterly divides Turkish and Kurdish citizens. Erdoğan’s assaults on the HDP only fuel this polarization and severely damage prospects for peace.

Another top concern for Washington is Turkey’s disregard for the rule of law, at home and abroad. Erdoğan’s control of the judiciary not only makes everyone in Turkey, including American citizens, vulnerable to arbitrary prosecutions; it also makes Turkey an irresponsible international actor. Today, Erdoğan’s Turkey is second only to Putin’s in the number of cases it faces before the European Court of Human Rights. Despite Turkey’s legal obligation to follow the court’s decisions, it has been refusing to implement them—most prominently, by failing to release a high-profile political detainee, civil society leader Osman Kavala, for nearly two years. This is by no means the only example. Erdoğan is leading Turkey to undermine key multilateral institutions that are designed to uphold a rules-based international order. It is no coincidence that Turkey recently forced its NATO allies to water down a crucial joint statement condemning Belarusian dictator Lukashenko after he brazenly kidnapped a 26-year-old dissident from a Ryanair flight.

Erdoğan’s authoritarianism is not just a domestic issue: It is also fundamentally changing Turkey’s global orientation. The Turkish republic has never been a full-fledged democracy, but for decades, it saw itself as part of a Western club of democracies, and strived to be a responsible member of the international community. These features played a central role in turning Turkey into a U.S. ally, and remain the top reasons why NATO still has a vested interest in keeping Turkey in its orbit. But the more Erdoğan moves Turkey away from democratic values, the more Turkey undermines the alliance’s core objectives. For all of these reasons, it is vital for Washington to make the promotion of human rights and democracy in Turkey a top priority.

I look forward to your questions.

Find a PDF version of these remarks here. Turkey’s Intensifying Crackdown: What It Means and What’s At Stake

Thank you for joining the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) for a webinar on Turkey’s Intensifying Crackdown:

What It Means and What’s At Stake

Thursday, April 22, 2021 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT (6:00 – 7:00 PM GMT+3) Via Zoom

Read the event highlights.

You can also find the livestream on Facebook or Twitter.

Background

In recent weeks, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has significantly escalated his assaults on democracy and human rights in Turkey. As Turkish authorities unjustly imprisoned a prominent member of parliament from the second-largest opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the government initiated a process to ban the HDP entirely. Erdoğan also suddenly withdrew Turkey from the Istanbul Convention, a major international treaty designed to combat violence against women. Earlier this winter, Turkish police cracked down on peaceful student protestors at Istanbul’s prestigious Boğaziçi University and government officials attacked them with homophobic hate speech online. Collectively, these repressive moves constitute what Human Rights Watch has called a crackdown on “a scale unprecedented in the 18 years that [Erdoğan] has been in office.”

Please join us for a panel discussion on why Erdoğan is cranking up repression, what the impact on the ground is, and how the United States and Europe should respond.

Featuring Panelists

Emma Sinclair-Webb

Turkey Director, Human Rights Watch

Gönül Tol

Turkey Program Director, Middle East Institute

Amberin Zaman

Senior Correspondent for the Middle East and North Africa, Al-Monitor

Moderator

Merve Tahiroğlu

Turkey Program Coordinator, POMED

Speaker Bios

EMMA SINCLAIR-WEBB is a senior Turkey researcher with the Europe and division of Human Rights Watch. She has worked on issues including police violence, accountability for enforced disappearances and killings by state perpetrators, the misuse of terrorism laws, and arbitrary detention. Ms. Sinclair-Webb was a researcher on Turkey for Amnesty International from 2003 to 2007, and previously worked in publishing as a commissioning editor on books on history, culture, and politics in the Middle East and southeast Europe. She has degrees from Cambridge University and Birkbeck College, London, and speaks Turkish. GÖNÜL TOL is the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program and a senior fellow with the Institute’s Frontier Europe Initiative. She is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies. She previously has been an adjunct professor at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, where she taught courses on Turkey, world politics, and the Middle East. Dr. Tol has written extensively on Turkey-U.S. relations, Turkish domestic politics, and the Kurdish issue.

AMBERIN ZAMAN is a senior correspondent reporting from the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe exclusively for Al-Monitor. Zaman has been a columnist for Al-Monitor for the past five years, examining the politics of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria and writing the daily Briefly Turkey newsletter. Prior to Al-Monitor, Zaman covered Turkey, the Kurds, and conflicts in the region for the Washington Post, Daily Telegraph, Los Angeles Times and Voice of America. Ms. Zaman served as the Economist‘s Turkey correspondent between 1999 and 2016 and has worked as a columnist for several Turkish language outlets.

MERVE TAHIROĞLU (moderator) is POMED’s Turkey Program Coordinator. Prior to joining POMED in 2019, Merve was a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where she focused on Turkey’s domestic politics, foreign policy, and relationship with Washington. She has authored several monographs and published articles in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Politico, and HuffPost.

Photo Credit: Oguz Kaan Cagatay Kilinc / Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Facebook page Istanbul, One Year After Imamoğlu’s Mayoral Win: Views from Civil Society

Thank you for joining the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) for a virtual panel discussion.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT (6:00 – 7:00 PM GMT+3) Via Zoom

Panelists:

Yaşar Adanalı Director, Center for Spatial Justice (Mekanda Adalet Derneği), Istanbul

Mehmet Ergen Director, Istanbul City Theaters (İBB Şehir Tiyatroları)

Ayla Jean Yackley Istanbul-based journalist

Moderated by:

Merve Tahiroğlu Turkey Program Coordinator, POMED

Background:

The public sphere has always been contentious in Turkey, a multicultural and politically polarized country. For two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AK Party expanded their control over public spaces and used their influence to reshape cities according to their social, political, and economic values. In the 2019 local elections, however, the victory of opposition mayors in Turkey’s main cities shattered the AKP’s municipal dominance. In Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city and cultural capital, transition to opposition rule has given a particular boost to civil society and brought fresh air to civic and cultural life.

One year after the June 23, 2019 landslide victory of Ekrem Imamoğlu—the first opposition mayor of Istanbul elected in 25 years—please join us for a panel with Turkish civil society leaders and experts to hear their reflections on how civic space and civil society activism in Istanbul has changed under the new political leadership.

Bios:

YAŞAR ADNAN ADANALI is an Istanbul-based urbanist, activist, and researcher. He is one of the co-founders and the general director of the Center for Spatial Justice (Mekanda Adalet Derneği), an Istanbul non-profit working toward more fair, democratic, and ecological urban and rural spaces. His PhD research at the Technische Universität Berlin is on right-to-land movements in informal neighborhoods in Istanbul. Yaşar previously worked as an action planner with urban communities in the Dominican Republic and on refugee camp improvement projects in the Middle East. Since 2010, he has been teaching participatory planning and co-housing at Darmstadt Technical University in . Yaşar is a volunteer consultant for Düzce Hope Homes, the first participatory social housing project in Turkey and a finalist for the World Habitat Awards. He has received fellowships from the Ashoka Foundation and the Bertha Foundation.

MEHMET ERGEN is the general director of the Istanbul City Theaters (İBB Sehir Tiyatrolari), operated by the Istanbul municipality. He has produced and directed performances at London’s Arcola Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, both of which he co-founded. In Istanbul, Mehmet has served as the artistic director at the Yeni Kusak Theater (New Generation Theater) at Akbank Art Center and Talimhane Theater, which he also founded. He has directed plays in Israel, Canada, and across Europe and taught at the University of Essex, the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts, and Bilgi University.

AYLA JEAN YACKLEY is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul. She contributes regularly to Al- Monitor and has also published in the Financial Times, the New Yorker, the Economist, and Politico, among many other outlets. She mainly writes about politics and civil society, with a focus on human and minority rights. Ayla is a graduate of Northwestern University and has worked as a correspondent and reporter for the Associated Press, Reuters, and Bloomberg LP in Turkey.

MERVE TAHIROĞLU (moderator) is POMED’s Turkey Program Coordinator. Prior to joining POMED in September 2019, Merve was a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where she focused on Turkey’s domestic politics, foreign policy, and relationship with Washington. She has authored several monographs and published articles in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Politico, and Huffington Post.

Photo credit: Flickr user Ben Morlok Reclaiming Democracy? One Year After Turkey’s Local Elections

A virtual discussion hosted by the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

Thursday, April 30, 2020

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT (6:00 – 7:00 PM GMT+3) Via livestream

Speakers

Harun Ercan former advisor, Diyarbakır Municipality

Seren Selvin Korkmaz Executive Director, IstanPol Institute

Aylin Yardımcı Digital Editor, İstanbul Municipality

Moderator

Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey Program Coordinator, POMED

Background

Just over a year ago, opposition candidates won the mayoralties of İstanbul, Ankara, and nine other cities across Turkey in a striking political upset for President Erdoğan. Now, the COVID-19 crisis has put the spotlight back on these opposition mayors. As they struggle to protect their cities’ residents and minimize the pandemic’s humanitarian costs, Erdoğan has shut down their soup kitchens, blocked their fundraising activities, and imposed erratic curfews—all to deny his emerging rivals any political credit. These are only Erdoğan’s latest interventions against the opposition mayors and their efforts to reclaim democracy in their cities.

Please join us on April 30 for a virtual panel discussion on Turkey’s opposition mayors, one year after the municipal elections.

Speaker Bios

HARUN ERCAN served as an international affairs advisor to the co-mayors of Diyarbakır. He is currently a PhD candidate at the State University of New York at Binghamton, studying conflict resolution, social movements, and authoritarianism. He has taught courses on Turkish political history at Koç University and was a founding editorial board member ofToplum and Kuram, Turkey’s first academic journal to focus on Kurdish issues.

SEREN SELVIN KORKMAZ is the co-founder and executive director of IstanPol Institute, an independent think-tank in Turkey. She is a PhD candidate and researcher at Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS). Previously, she was a Fox International Fellow at Yale University. Until 2017, she was the Turkey director of the Political and Social Research Institute of Europe (PS:EUROPE), an Austria- and Turkey- based institute that she co-founded. She is a political commentator frequently appearing both in Turkish and international media.

AYLIN YARDIMCI is a digital media editor at the İstanbul Municipality (İBB) under Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and a PhD candidate of international relations at Koç University. Before joining the municipality, she was an anchor for the English-language weekly news program “This Week in Turkey” at the independent online media channel Medyascope TV.

MERVE TAHIROĞLU (moderator) is POMED’s Turkey Program Coordinator. Prior to joining POMED, Merve was a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where she focused on Turkey’s domestic politics, foreign policy, and relationship with Washington. She has authored several monographs on Turkey and published articles in various outlets such asForeign Affairs, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Politico, and Huffington Post.

A Conversation with Journalist Suzy Hansen

Thank you for joining the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) for a book discussion on

NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY: AN AMERICAN ABROAD IN A POST-AMERICAN WORLD

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Project on Middle East Democracy 1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 617 Washington, DC

Featuring:

Suzy Hansen Journalist and author of Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World

Amy Hawthorne Deputy Director for Research, POMED

POMED is pleased to invite you to join us as journalistSuzy Hansen discusses her acclaimed new book, Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World. In her debut book, Hansen, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, reflects on her time living in Turkey and traveling across the region to grapple with the challenging history of U.S. policy and power in the Middle East.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar describes the book as “a political and personal memoir that negotiates that vertiginous distance that exists between what America is and what it thinks of itself.” The Washington Post suggests that Hansen “urges Americans to recognize the perspectives that shape – and sometimes distort – how they understand their country’s role in the world.”

A question and answer session will follow the discussion. Books will be available for purchase at the event. What’s Left of Turkish Democracy?

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Featuring:

Howard Eissenstat Associate Professor, St. Lawrence University; POMED Nonresident Senior Fellow and author of the POMED report “Erdogan as Autocrat: A Very Turkish Tragedy”

Nicholas Danforth Senior Policy Analyst, Bipartisan Policy Center

Amanda Sloat Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Affairs, 2013-2016

Amberin Zaman Columnist, Al-Monitor

Moderator:

Amy Hawthorne Deputy Director for Research, POMED

On June 21, 2017, the Project on Middle East Democracy and the Bipartisan Policy Center hosted an event entitled “What’s Left of Turkish Democracy?” The following is a summary of the discussion.

Panelist Remarks

Amanda Sloat described her impressions from a recent visit to Turkey. A year after the attempted coup, many in the United States and Europe do not fully appreciate how traumatizing the event was. There remains a “pervasive climate of anxiety and uncertainty,” a vulnerable state apparatus, and a feeling of vulnerability and paranoia in Turkish society. The indefinite state of emergency and the crackdown on dissent has had a distinct “chilling effect” on civil society. The purges of state institutions carried out under the guise of targeting those alleged to have been involved in the coup attempt have created uncertainty among the populace. The Turkish government is changing the boundary of what is permissible politically, which has led to a narrowing political space for dissent, shrinking press freedom, and a lack of public confidence in institutions. Despite these serious challenges, however, Turkish civil society is showing some resilience, Sloat argued. Amidst an unfree and potentially unfair voting environment, it is notable that 48 percent of the Turkish electorate voted against the April constitutional referendum to give sweeping new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As another example, in June 2017, the government withdrew a proposal to allow developers to build industrial facilities in olive groves due to popular opposition. Head of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu’s current “march for justice” from Ankara to Istanbul is another sign of active opposition. The “silver lining,” Sloat said, is that “civil society is not dead—people are still willing to stand up and engage.”

Howard Eissenstat discussed the impact of the constitutional referendum, which creates an executive presidency system. “We know the referendum was played on an uneven terrain,” Eissenstat argued, citing widespread reports of institutional bias against the “No” campaign and of ballot rigging. Hopes that Erdoğan would end the state of emergency after his referendum victory and take other steps to normalize the political situations were wishful thinking. Eissenstat does not believe that “now, or in the foreseeable future, we will see a fundamental shift” in the President’s behavior—“Erdoğan will be Erdoğan.” Instead, the purge “will expand” as the government is continuing to expropriate property of real and alleged opponents, to bring legal action against journalists, and to fight a costly conflict against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The results of the referendum were not ideal for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) despite its structural advantages, Eissenstat said. The vote was extraordinarily tight as the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) did not receive the strong support they expected for a “yes” vote – the official tally was 51.41 percent for “Yes” and 48.59 percent for “No”. The close result indicates that political instability will continue, especially as some members of the AKP break from Erdoğan and the “tentacles of the purge” extend further and even start to start to touch elements of the AKP itself. Erdoğan will “take the changes he won to the bank, but the narrowness of the victory points to some real weaknesses,” Eissenstat argued. The referendum made things more complicated for the President—“no one was happy with the results” due to the slim margin of victory. The results demonstrated the limitations of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), the pro-Kurdish opposition party, in opposing Erdoğan, although it is difficult to determine the HDP vote accurately owing to the widespread displacement and disenfranchisement of Kurdish voters. It appears that the HDP lost some support, and with most of its leadership imprisoned, the party is no longer a serious force in Turkish politics. The MHP also underperformed in the referendum, despite the strong support of party leaders for the “Yes” campaign, indicating lack of unity in the party on the issue. The other opposition party, the CHP, recognizes that it must change tactics in order to survive in this new environment. Kiliçdaroğlu’s “march for justice” is a sign that it is resorting to new tactics to mobilize popular support against Erdoğan. Amberin Zaman discussed the effects of the coup attempt on the peace process with the Kurdish armed opposition, as well as on policies toward Kurds outside the country. Zaman disagreed with Eissenstat’s statement about HDP underperformance in the referendum, arguing that the results do not directly translate into support for the AKP and that southern Turkey was the “least level playing ground in the country” due to vote rigging and other tactics. She argued that the peace process was already dead by last summer, due to Erdoğan’s decision to walk away from promising peace negotiations in February 2015. Erdoğan was unwilling to negotiate seriously due to the growing influence of Kurdish militias in Syria and because the Kurds were not supportive of his project to expand presidential powers. The collapse of the negotiations was followed by the collapse of the ceasefire last summer, which Zaman described as one of the saddest moments in Turkish history. The popularity of the HDP in the 2015 legislative elections, when the party crossed the electoral threshold and entered parliament, created a “great opportunity for Turkey to move forward” on

resolving the Kurdish conflict through politics. But this progress was soon erased as war between Turkey and the PKK reignited. The coup attempt gave Erdoğan new ammunition against the Kurds, especially as he is “determined to defeat them on the battlefield” instead of pursing a political solution. Erdoğan is interested in creating his own Kurdish movement through the groups like Huda-Par and Kurds who are supportive of the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani. There is “no room for the peace process as we knew it,” at least before the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Zaman posited that the coup attempt and its aftermath did not have a major impact on Turkey’s relationship with the Iraqi Kurds, but Barzani was very quick to express his support for Erdoğan in the wake of the events, and Erdoğan will rely on Barzani’s support to mobilize anti-PKK Kurds in Turkey. The U.S. decision to provide arms to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria was a “big slap in the face” for Erdoğan. (The YPG is the military wing of the Democratic Union Party, PYD, a Syrian Kurdish nationalist group with close ties to the PKK. The Turkish government makes no official distinction between the YPG and PKK, and considers both to be parts of the same terrorist group.) The collapse of central authority in the Kurdish areas of Syria and the military partnership between the Syrian Kurds and the United States are comparable to the situation with the U.S.- enforced no-fly zone in Iraq in 1991 that led to the solidification of Iraqi Kurdistan, Zaman observed.

Nicholas Danforth argued that despite the current dominant narrative that it doesn’t matter if Turkey is autocratic as long as it continues strategic cooperation with the United States, ignoring the authoritarian slide is short-sighted and dangerous. The decline of Turkish democracy could have serious consequences for the U.S.-Turkey relationship. Rising authoritarianism would ensure ongoing and intensified anti-Americanism and would make cooperation on key regional issues even more difficult. Danforth noted that Erdoğan had tempered criticism of the United States since President Trump’s inauguration, in order to try to build relations with the new administration, but Erdoğan may quickly return to harsh rhetoric if tensions increase. The United States has a history of working with authoritarian regimes, but Turkey is demonstrably different than autocratic countries like Saudi Arabia that do not make a pretense of being democratic, while Erdoğan and those around him are very invested in portraying a façade of democracy. Whereas other authoritarian allies can discuss security or stability with the United States, Erdoğan’s rhetoric keeps the focus on Turkey’s democratic deficit, ensuring continued criticism from the United States and Europe. As a result, Erdoğan will “have to come up with some way to explain to his public why the United States, Europe, and other democratic countries don’t accept Turkey as a democracy,” and anti-Americanism will likely bridge that gap.

The United States counts on authoritarian allies to provide stability, but authoritarian Turkey does not seem destined to be stable due to numerous internal and external conflicts and an economy close to crisis. ISIS’s terrorist campaign inside Turkey, threats from Kurdish militant groups like the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), and the arrival of new militants in Turkey could inflame the situation after the Syrian regime retakes the city of Idlib, which is currently controlled by the al- Qaeda affiliated rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The country is already intensely divided, with a populace that has little trust in institutions and widespread rumors of armed militias loyal to Erdoğan, which could quickly destabilize the situation in the event of another crisis. Politically motivated arrests could quickly extend to members of all four major political parties, which would take the country into dangerous territory. Danforth argued that “in the best-case scenario, it’s a very rocky road for U.S.-Turkish relations ahead in the near term, and in the long term, Turkey may face a steep precipice at the end of the road it is on.”

Finally, Danforth noted that he found it difficult to be positive about prospects for democratic resilience, especially as the leadership of the HDP is already imprisoned, and all other opposition is facing threats. The United States may choose to double down on Erdoğan as the only figure who can maintain stability, but this is unwise. Erdoğan has consolidated his power to the point that if there were a serious challenge to his rule and “if he was going to go down, he could take the country down with him.”

Audience Q & A

Q: What should the United States do to help Turkish democracy?

The most helpful step, Danforth said, would be to pursue a political solution to the conflict between the government and the PKK. This will be very difficult, however, so realistically the United States should focus on trying to keep the current situation from getting worse. The terrorist threat is intensifying, and further attacks will destabilize the country. The United States maintains some leverage over the PKK, Danforth stated, and if there is a PKK campaign against civilian targets in Turkey, there should be consequences for the U.S.-YPG relationship.

Sloat observed that it is always a challenge in U.S. policy to find the correct balance between pursuing interests and advancing values. Turkey’s NATO membership requires the United States to be concerned about Turkish democracy. If the United States and Europe turn away from Turkey, it will likely seek partners elsewhere (such as Russia). There is a risk that intense public criticism likely would “trigger further anti-Americanism.” But the Trump administration must find ways to strategically raise specific concerns both publicly and privately about democracy and human rights instead of taking a purely “transactional approach” to the relationship with Ankara.

Zaman argued that American leverage over Turkey is often overstated, and the United States is likely to soften its stance on the PKK as long as it needs the YPG as a military partner against ISIS in Syria. Despite these limitations, the United States “should continue to raise its voice and continue to treat Turkey like a democracy because it is a useful fiction to maintain.”

She pointed out the has a substantial economic and political relationship with Turkey, more so than the United States, and thus is a key actor. But Europe is in a state of flux and the EU’s relationship with Turkey is complex, in part because of European efforts to work with Turkey to host Syrian refugees who might otherwise seek to enter Europe.

Eissenstat said that the international community must speak up about Turkey’s deteriorating democracy, and take “the long view” that includes the possibility of unexpected developments that could alter the situation inside the country. Policymakers should not assume that the current status quo will last indefinitely, he argued: “One can envision certain circumstances where the Turkish government shifts,” and “the possibility exists of a coalition that could viably challenge Erdoğan in 2019.” The audience for U.S. diplomacy promoting human rights and democratic values is not only Erdoğan, but also the wider Turkish public, including the AKP base, most of which believes in the basic values of rule of law and personal freedoms.

Q: What is the economic impact of the mass purge of state employees?

More than 100,000 people have lost their jobs in the purges, and they have struggled to find other jobs, while the seizure of their passports renders them unable to leave the country, Sloat mentioned. Within the overall population of Turkey (around 80 million), the purge probably won’t have a sustained long-term effect on the national economy, Sloat said, but it will create a not- insignificant pool of people who will be unemployed for the foreseeable future. Their long-term prospects are uncertain. The government is creating a commission to review cases of termination, but the structure will be slow, bureaucratic, and likely politicized.

Eissenstat described how the AKP has capitalized on the purges to place loyalists in positions of power and to appropriate the businesses of accused Gülenists. The purge is “part of a longer story of the AKP wresting control of the public sector,” he explained. It is not clear that under these circumstances Turkey can have a successful and stable economy and attract foreign investors–the country cannot have “a market economy and a regime that engages in purges.”

Q: Is it true that there was an uptick in PKK activities around the time of the attempted coup?

Zaman stated that the PKK was reacting to the government’s increasingly offensive posture. This problem cannot be solved through military means, Zaman contended: the PKK largely exists due to the failure of Turkish state to address the Kurds’ long-running grievances. “I do not expect the PKK to fix the Kurdish problem. I expect my government, the government to which I pay taxes, to fix the problem,” she added

Q: Will the Turkish government give citizenship to Syrian refugees in the country? Giving citizenship to the three million Syrian refugees in Turkey would be the humane thing to do, Zaman argued, and from Erdoğan’s perspective would also likely create new votes for the AKP. A mass offer of citizenship, however, would be politically impossible due to opposition from many Turks. The Turkish people have displayed immense grace in their handling of huge Syrian refugee population, but the idea of granting citizenship is controversial.

Q: Why is Turkey siding with Qatar in the current GCC crisis?

Sloat said that Turkey is acting in part due to its close financial relationship with Qatar, but she does not believe that Turkey is looking to become deeply embroiled in the conflict. The recent decision to move a limited number of Turkish troops to Qatar was a symbolic move, and the result of a basing agreement in the works since 2014. Turkey had wanted to present itself to the new Trump administration as an appealing potential partner against Iran, Danforth said, in the hope that this would strengthen Turkey’s position regionally. However, Turkey’s pro-Qatar stance, which is similar to Iran’s, shows that aligning with the United States unconditionally against Iran doesn’t actually fit with Turkey’s own foreign policy preferences. Zaman noted that a pro-Qatar position is in line with popular sentiment among many Turks. She mentioned a recent column in the Daily Sabah by Erdoğan’s spokesperson İbrahim Kalın defending Qatar and the Qatari and Turkish backing of the Muslim Brotherhood as an example of the government’s justification for its position.

Q: What could lead to a decline in support for Erdoğan?

Eissenstat stated that Erdoğan can’t afford for the Turkish economy to tank, or for Turkey to “look like a dictatorship.” Erdoğan needs an opposition that will “sit in Parliament yelling at him and contesting elections,” but not a viable-enough opposition to challenge his authority. The march for justice from Ankara to Istanbul poses a discomforting choice for Erdoğan, as he will have to either choose to forcibly stop the march or allow Kiliçdaroğlu to walk into the suburbs of Istanbul and possibly gather thousands of people in the streets. Danforth added that pro-government media has criticized the march, but has begrudgingly admitted that Kiliçdaroğlu has the democratic right to take this action. Zaman mentioned that it is important to recognize the double-standard of Turkish politics—if the HDP mounted a similar effort, the leaders would face serious consequences.

Q: Can Turkish foreign policy be seen as an extension of domestic policy?

According to Eissenstat, Turkish foreign policy is linked intrinsically with an attempt to gain domestic support through nationalism, but Erdoğan’s nationalist foreign policy decisions also are often heartfelt. Zaman questioned the extent of the United States’ willingness to put up with this type of Turkish foreign policy. Sloat added that there is a perception in Turkey that anti-American campaign rhetoric is permissible and that “no one can hear it outside of Turkey.” But given the global communications of the modern world, there are legitimate consequences to aggressive rhetoric, as evidenced by the fallout from Erdoğan accusing German Chancellor Angela Merkel of employing “Nazi measures” during a diplomatic spat earlier this year. Zaman pointed out that the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and scrutiny of his lobbying for Turkey, and the violent clashes in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington during Erdoğan’s visit in May, have increased the focus on Turkey in American politics. Danforth said that there is a perception of Erdoğan as dichotomous: a supremely clever and skilled politician who deals with national issues in a very personal and emotional manner. Domestically, though, Erdoğan’s emotional instincts and willingness to personalize politics and punish his enemies have proved to be quite practical and effective. But these traits clash more in foreign policy when Erdoğan doesn’t always have the ability to follow through on his threats and posturing, as seen for example in his failed push to topple the Assad regime in Syria. Q: Do the referendum results indicate a rural-urban divide in the AKP?

Eissenstat urged caution in reading too much into the regional breakdown of the referendum vote, noting that local patronage systems and familial relations may have had more of an impact on voting patterns than geographic location. A strong urban-rural split is possible, but it is hard to know conclusively from the information available to date about election results. Sloat said that the AKP is actively concerned about such a split, with Erdoğan’s party looking to replace city mayors with politicians who could promote AKP policies more effectively. Zaman added that there is apathy at the grassroots level of the AKP because of a lack of enthusiasm for the executive presidency plans.

Q: What is the future of the Gülen movement?

Danforth said that it is possible that the government could eventually choose to show leniency to some of the tens of thousands of purged Gülenists, making their social rehabilitation dependent on begging forgiveness and expressing their newfound loyalty for Erdoğan. Zaman said this was unlikely. Gülenists are trying to separate themselves from the alleged perpetrators of the failed coup in order to continue the global movement. Eissenstat noted the complexity and secrecy of the Gülenist movement: it can be understood as a sub-state structure in Turkey, as an international political organization, and as a religious movement. Sloat concluded by stating that she did not see much of a short-term future for the movement inside Turkey, especially as it has been deemed a terrorist organization, but international Gülenist networks may survive.